


Lone Candles

by nymja



Category: The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: F/M, Fairy Tale Retellings, Reincarnation fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-20
Updated: 2015-06-27
Packaged: 2018-02-13 23:12:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 73,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2168904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nymja/pseuds/nymja
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They've lived ten lives together. Only one has ended happily.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The First Life: The Firebird (part i)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KaelsMiscellany](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaelsMiscellany/gifts).



> -For whenwolfsbaneblooms/ KaelsMiscellany, who requested Alarkling reincarnation fic. This was a massively fun prompt to work with, hope you enjoy it :D
> 
> -I decided to keep the names the same throughout the lives for simplicity’s sake. And the Darkling is going to be a little bit…nicer, this first life. Don’t worry, it’s not permanent :’D Also this gets a little AU, but I tried to keep it as canon-compliant as possible

**o.**

It’s believed that shadows chase the light.  
But the truth of it is that the world was born from darkness.

It’s known that light is the only thing that can conquer the bleak stretches of empty space.  
But the fate of every candle is to go to the dark when it is extinguished.

Every time he is born, she follows.  
Every time she dies, he waits.

\--

 _“He has served countless kings, faked countless deaths, bided his time, **waiting for you.**_ ”

**The First Life: The Firebird, Part I.**

 

**i.**

She’s heard the gossip about the new neighbors, but Alina doesn’t have the patience for either rumors or people, so it’s not until they come into her store that she cares much about their existence.

They. Already it seems like they belong as a pair. Which, Alina assumes, only makes sense if they’re  _travelers_ as the old baker’s wife likes to proclaim every morning when Alina buys her bread. And it’s usually proclaimed with a curled lip and a heavy sigh, as if people moving from place to place left the places at a burdened disadvantage. Alina, unlike the baker’s wife, didn’t see the need to create a fuss. Travelers were, after all, known for traveling and it was unlikely that they would stay long enough to make a ripple in the tepid ocean that was life in the valley.

It’s the mother that comes in first.

“I have blankets that need mending,” she says, and her voice is cold and clipped.

Alina doesn’t look up from the set of wedding linens she is preparing, rows and rows of orange and red flowers embroidered upon each other, almost looking like flames, “I don’t mend.”

“Neither, it seems, does anyone else in this village,” the woman’s tone is wry, but Alina catches the hint of scorn underneath it. And it doesn’t surprise her that no one in the valley has been open enough to cater to  _travelers._

Alina’s fingers pause, “You’ve been to the weaver?”

“And the tailor.”

She slides the needle sideways through the cloth, securing it into the linen, before she looks up from her work.

A pair of black eyes stare back at her, and Alina feels her mouth suddenly go dry.

The woman is older, her features stern and beautiful in a harsh way, like the polish of quartz. She is all hard angles and clean edges, and she is most certainly not from the valley. Alina doesn’t know why her heart rate picks up, but it does when she looks at the woman, and part of her can’t help the desperate thrum in the back of her mind:  _she knows._

Alina clears her throat, “Do you have money?”

It’s a fair question. Small places, especially small stores with a specialty craft like her own, do not survive on charity.

The woman nods, “More than what it’s worth.”

Alina sighs, and casts her eyes back on her linens. It’s difficult, for some reason, to keep her gaze leveled with the traveler’s, “Than I suppose I will mend you blankets.”

The traveler snorts, “Good. And if you expect me to pay you more, I expect you to be quick about it.”

Alina fought the urge to roll her eyes, “If you expect me to be quick, I expect you to pay more.”

The woman’s lips pressed into a thin line, before she gestured to the linens in Alina’s lap, “And don’t embellish anything, embroiderer. The horse’ll just kick up mud on whatever you stitch and I’m not about to carry any wool that looks worth stealing because you want to put on airs.”

She decided to take that as a compliment, backhanded though it might be, “…if you want them done quickly, I suggest bringing them in first.”

“Do all the village girls have such barbed tongues?”

Alina bit the inside of her cheek.  _She knows. She knows she knows._

“No,” she says with a calm she doesn’t feel, as she withdraws her embroidery needle from the cloth, “Just me.”

\--

She locks up that night, and retreats to the upstairs room where she lives by herself. Her parents have been dead for a few years now, and the weaver has allowed her to pay off the small, wooden building in whatever payments she can afford.

\--

The next morning, it is not a traveler who comes to her store, but the butcher’s son. Alina is still working on the wedding linens, the flowers blooming in fine lines of thread, and spreading over the tablecloths like vines. She’s so intensely focused on one of the leaves that she doesn’t realize Mal has entered her store until he lets out a shrill whistle. Alina startles, the needle poking through the skin of her finger and she gives a harsh hiss in return, bringing the wound to her lips so her blood doesn’t stain the fabric.

“What now?”

Mal only smiles, and suddenly her finger hurts a little less and her temper’s slightly more restrained, “I can’t come visit?”

Alina moves her finger from her lips, oblivious to the way that Mal’s eyes follow the motion as she inspects it for a new swell of blood. Sighing, she stands and grabs some cloth to wrap around it, “Not if you wound me,” she lifted her hand and wiggled her fingers, “My trade, remember?”

Mal chuckles, reaching across and wrapping his coarser, larger hand around her own, “Let’s inspect then,” he brings her fingers up to his eye-level and starts to slowly rotate her hand from one side to the other. Alina feels her heart thud, matched only in its staccato by that undefinable welling of sadness in the pit of her stomach. He smiles again, and she tries to savor the expression along with the warmth of his skin against hers, “I think you’ll survive to sew another day. Which is good, because Ruby won’t shut up about getting a new skirt. I think she might skin me alive if I were to take you out of business before it was finished.”

She feels the start of a grin despite herself, “ _I’ll_ skin you alive.”

Mal’s eyebrows rose. Alina was acutely aware of how he had not yet released her fingers, “Is that a threat?”

“Of course it is.”

He drops her hand with a quick kiss to the back of it, and Alina feels herself warm around the backs of her ears. The hand that was previously wrapped around hers goes to clutch over his chest, “You’ll be the death of me one day.”

“Especially if you keep whistling,” Alina mutters, eyes dropping down.

“I’ll knock next time, but no promises if I have to resort to drastic measures to get your attention.”

“Are you trying to get my attention?”

Mal mimicked her earlier words, “Of course I am.” His smile fell a little, “But it’s a lot harder lately.”

Alina bit down on her lip, “I should get back to work.”

“Alina-“

“I’ll stop by the butcher’s later.”

Mal hesitated before finally rolling his shoulders, “Are you?”

“I said so, didn’t I?”

He shakes his head, “You said so yesterday.”

Alina winced, “I forgot. I’m sorry, I had an order come in-“

Mal gave the top of her hand a brief, fleeting pat, “I’ll wait at the shop until sundown.”

She tried to smile, “I’ll see you then.”

\--

Alina doesn’t go to the shop that day. Or the day after. And though it hurts, she knows it’s for the best. For both of them. He’s been less than careful about his intentions, and she also knows that Mal doesn’t want to just be her friend anymore. Hopes that had been kept close to the chest were starting to show in his eyes, and when Mal stares at her she sees herself desiring those same dreams.

And so she must stay away from him. Because it’s too easy to want.

Mal isn’t like her. And not being like her is something she won’t ruin for him.

\--

In four days, Mal hasn’t come to visit, her wedding linens are finished, and Alina is working on Ruby’s new skirt when a traveler comes through the door to her shop. Like she had greeted his mother, Alina does not look up from her work when he enters: this time it’s a firebird, dancing across the hem.

She hears the muted sound of blankets being placed onto a counter, the heavier sound of footfalls, “Are you the one who spoke to my mother?”

Alina wraps the end of a vibrant, red thread around her finger, “I speak to many mothers. Which one was yours.”

There’s a silence, and Alina is starting to wonder if he’s been struck silent in the awe of her wit before he speaks again, “…I have blankets for mending.”

She ties the red string in a thick knot, before she looks up from her work.

A pair of grey eyes stare back at her, and Alina feels her mouth go dry.

The man is younger, his features stern and beautiful in a harsh way, like the face of his mother. He is drawn somber and reserved, and he is most certainly not from the valley. Alina doesn’t know why her heart rate picks up, but it does when she looks at the traveler, and part of her can’t help but stare at the beautiful set to his jaw or the handsome elegance of his long fingers _._

He is silent. And, after a moment of recovery, Alina realizes there is an underlying hostility to him. That the beautiful jaw is slightly clenched, that those elegant fingers are curled into fists on top of the blankets.

“Well?” He mutters, and Alina frowns.

“Do you have money?”

It’s a cautious question. Her mind unwittingly moves to the ridiculous stories the baker’s wife would tell, about bandits and robbers and  _travelers,_ just waiting for the right moment to take advantage of poor old women, small children, and helpless maidens-

And she snorts, her hands curling gently into fists themselves. She’s far from helpless. And even if he is a traveler, he’s not something she’ll be afraid of.

“More than what these are worth,” he replies, and she sees that flicker of irritation in his eyes. The begrudging set of his shoulders.

“I work quickly,” Alina replies instead, not about to give any ground just because there’s something so fundamentally… _different_ about him than the rest of the villagers in the valley. Even different from his mother.

“Good,” he lifts the blankets and Alina simultaneously puts down her needlework. The man (he might even be a boy, Alina wouldn’t put him a year or two past her own age of sixteen) stills for a moment, and Alina doesn’t understand what he’s doing until he sees him staring at Ruby’s skirt. At the red and gold flames that trail after the Firebird, darting across the navy fabric.

Her mouth tilts up in a grin despite herself, “Would you like me to make you a skirt, too?”

His eyes snap back to her face, and he looks at her grin with something that might be confusion. Eventually, his features arrange themselves back into that tightly wound expression of indifference, “…You’re talented.”

The words sound like they are being forced through his teeth.

Her eyebrows furrow, “I’m…sorry?”

She sees the hint of a small grin trying to grow on his face, though he forces it away before it truly forms. His hands offer her the blankets once more, “How long before they’re finished?”

Alina looks at the stack. They are old and nearly threadbare, and they reek of horse, “Three days.”

He nods, and Alina outstretches her hands to take the cloth from his hands. When she does, her fingers accidentally brush the underside of his wrist.

The second their skin touches, Alina feels a spike in her heart. And it’s not like the warmth she experiences when Mal holds her hand. This is different. This is electricity. She feels something crawl under her skin like currents, settling down to that dark, secret thing she kept hidden inside her. Alina takes a ragged breath as she feels her power surge up over the dam she has built around it, eager to meet with whatever it was about this man’s touch that called to it.

She rips her hands away. The blankets fall to the floor as she takes a terrified step back, the hand that touched him cradled to her chest.

“What-?” Alina looks at him, and is a little more at ease when she sees that his expression must mirror hers. That underlying anger is dissolved, replaced instead by what can only be shock. His jaw is no longer clenched, but slack.

He looks at her.  _Looks_ at her, this time. Alina feels a sweat break out onto her forehead.  _He knows._ She thought to herself.  _He knows he knows._

“I-“ and suddenly, he looks so much like a boy.

Fear floods over her stomach and into her heart. She hears her blood thrumming in a panic within her ears, “You-“ she tries to steel her nerves. She tries to mask this strange, undefinable  _thing_ that has just happened to her, “-You can pay for them when they’re finished.”

His mouth opens and closes, as if he’s trying to figure out how to respond to her sudden…normalcy. Finally, he nods, “I’ll be back in three days.”

Without another word, the traveler turns and leaves. And once she’s sure he’s gone, Alina runs over, locks the door to her shop, collapses in a heap on the floor, and stares at her hands for a very long time as sunlight glows from their fingertips.

\--

The mother searches for her the next day.

Alina is in the market, doing her best to avoid the butcher’s as she buys her bread from the incessantly chatty baker’s wife, when she sees the woman walk through the village like a storm. Where she moves, the crowd parts, and for the first time it occurs to Alina how very lonely such an existence might be. She watches for a few moments, before she realizes that the mother is looking for someone in particular, and as the travelers have fewer friends in the valley than even Alina does, there is only one person that might be.

Alina quickly puts her bread into a basket, and goes to leave before the traveler sees her. It had been a sleepless night for Alina, tossing and turning and feeling her power swell underneath her skin. Even still, she heard its song, its desire for freedom, its urge to be shown to the world.

Alina slips quietly into the crowd and is not spotted. And she’s thankful, because she does not want to see the travelers any more than what she must. Under her breath, she whispers a prayer to the saints that they leave just as quickly and quietly as they had arrived.

\--

She mends the blankets, and she does not put any of her designs onto them.

\--

“The  _travelers_ are asking about you,” the baker’s wife greets her coldly the next morning.

Alina stills her hand as it reaches for her usual roll, “What?”

The baker’s wife rolls her eyes, “ _Surely_ you’ve heard. The young man has stopped in here three different times,” the older woman’s heavily-lined stare narrows, “Did you send them to pester me, girl?”

She shakes her head, “I’m just doing some work for the mother. That’s all.”

The baker’s wife keeps her hawkish stare on her, “Well, don’t go getting  _ideas._ Traveling sounds romantic and foolish enough, but the valley is your home, and your home should keep you.”

Even though the travelers frighten her, Alina can’t help the amused tug at the corner of her mouth, “Do you think I’m going to run away with them?” Alina is many things, but she has never been accused of being an adventurer before.

“I think that young man is sweet on you,” she scoffs, “As  _travelers_ often are to village girls. But don’t fret, I made sure he knew you were spoken for.”

Alina frowned in confusion, “You what?”

The old baker’s wife shook a finger at her, “Don’t be foolish. We-“ Alina wondered who ‘we’ was, “-all know about you and the Oretsev boy,” she huffs up in pride, flour-covered hands resting on her hips, “Told that traveler to go to the butcher’s, if he had any other questions after that.”

Dread washes over her in a heavy wave, “You. Sent him to the butcher’s?”

She preens, “That’s right. I did. You’re welcome.”

Alina swallows, setting her roll down on the counter and the basket beside it, “I’ve got to go.”

The wife’s lips puckered, “Not traveling, I hope. Don’t you break that poor Oretsev boy’s heart, you hear?”

Alina didn’t dignify that with an answer as she walked out the door and into the road. The travelers knew what she was. Her pace quickened. They knew what she was and they were asking about her. Her walk became a jog. They were going to ask Mal about her. The jog became a run. Mal, who didn’t know what she was because she would never, ever tell him.

The run became a sprint.

\--

“It’s not true!” She cries out the second she can catch her breath.

Mal stares at her from behind the rows of meat, cleaver in his hand, and apron over his clothes, “…what’s not true?”

Alina sags against the wall, her heavy swallows of air the only noise in the butcher’s shop, which is empty save for her and Mal. “Whatever. They said. It’s not-“

She can see Mal’s face morph from angry to concerned in an instant, as he sets the cleaver down and walks around his wares. He kneels beside her, “Alina, what are you talking about?”

Alina finally manages to regain control of her breathing, “Whatever the travelers have asked, it’s not true.”

Her friend tilts his head, “Alina, we haven’t had the travelers here,” his eyebrows furrow, “Why?”

She’s never been good at lying, and as such, she struggles to come up with a response, “The baker’s wife has been spreading rumors that I was going to run away with them,” she finally settles on, relief flooding every bone of her body when she realizes that the travelers have not been here to see Mal yet. Have not asked him anything about her secret.

Mal tucks a piece of fallen hair behind her ear, “You ran here to tell me that?”

Alina bit her lip, “I-“ she shook her head, unable to finish the sentence. It seems ridiculous now, but all she could think about as she ran across the expanse of the village was how desperately she wanted Mal to never know the truth.

She stares into Mal’s eyes, the bright, clear blue of them. And he looks right back. And both are oblivious to the sound of the shop’s door opening.

The hand that tucked her hair back rests comfortingly on her shoulder, “Alina, what’s wrong?”

She steels herself, “There’s something-“

The sound of a throat being cleared made both of them look up. And Alina went very still as she took in the traveler before her.

The mother looks down at them, mouth pressed into a thin line, “You are a remarkably hard person to find, girl.”

Alina scrambled to stand, and Mal’s hand slid from her shoulder as he stood with her.

“Can I help you?” He asks guardedly, looking between the woman and Alina.

The woman’s cold, black eyes move like liquid from Alina to Mal. “You can.”

A twitch of a frown flickers on Mal’s face, “What can I get you.”

“Anything but game.”

He moved hesitantly back to the meat, as if he wasn’t willing to leave the space between Alina and the traveler open, “We have pig.”

“Is pig game?” She asks sharply.

“…no.”

“Then I will have pig.”

Mal sends her a bemused look, as if he had never encountered rudeness, before he dutifully begins to prepare her order. The woman turns towards Alina, and makes no effort to keep her voice quiet.

“My son finds you interesting.”

Mal’s hands still for a moment around the wrapping paper. The woman only continued to stare at Alina as if she were something in a cage. Alina wiped her hands on the sides of her skirt.

“I’m an interesting person.”

Something about the woman tenses and coils like a spring, “We’ll see,” she waits until Mal reluctantly withdraws to the back room, where the ice box is, and out of sight, before speaking again, “Give me your arm, girl.”

“Why.”

“Because I have no patience for games,” and before Alina can get a word in edge-wise, the woman wraps her small, birdlike hand tightly around her wrist.

Alina isn’t sure if it was because she is prepared for it, or if it is because the connection between this woman and herself isn’t as strong, but the surge of her power seems more manageable. She still feels the spike, the draw of it, the demand for her to unleash the force she kept tightly boxed in. The woman’s eyes widened quickly, before her face became its usual vision of barely contained scorn.

“Hmph,” she finally mutters, her fingers going lax against Alina’s skin.

Alina’s breathing shortened, and she tore her arm away from the woman’s grip, “You can’t tell anyone,” she hissed.

The woman met her eyes, and Alina was again simultaneously drawn and repelled by the endless darkness to her irises, “Did you think we were travelers by choice, foolish girl?”

Alina froze, “Then you’re-“

“Travelers.” The woman states with finality, “And only travelers, do you understand? Just as you are only an embroiderer.”

Alina began to respond, but silenced herself when she heard Mal’s footfalls against the wood.

“Twelve coins,” he says calmly, but Alina knows he is taking in the sweat on her forehead, the slight shake of her shoulders.

The woman pays for her meat, and leaves without another word or glance in Alina’s direction.

Mal wipes his hands slowly on a rag, “…you’ve made some odd friends, Alina.”

She closes her eyes for a moment, gathering her thoughts, before she walks over to him, “They’re not my friends.”

He raises an eyebrow, “But her son finds you interesting.”

Alina’s eyes dart away guiltily, but not for the reason Mal thinks.

And he looks at her as if for the first time, “Alina…” he sighs, “You’ve been avoiding me.”

She bites down on her lower lip, “Yes.” Because she can lie to Mal about who she is, but she’d never lie to him about anything else.

And she knows that emotion in his voice is hurt, “Why?”

Alina takes a deep breath, “I…have to go.”

Mal stares at her with a coldness she has never seen in him before, “Alright.”

And somehow that one word sounds like a nail in a coffin, “Mal-“

He shakes his head, “You’d better leave,” she can see the strain in his neck as he picks up his cleaver and stalks towards the wood chopping blocks, “Interesting people to see and all that.”

“It’s not like that, Mal-“

“Be careful on the way home.”

Alina isn’t sure why her heart is suddenly lodged in her throat, rendering her incapable of speaking, but it is. And she leaves the butcher shop much slower than entering it.

\--

The third day passes.

And on the fourth day she meets the son again.

 

**ii.**

She’s working on a tapestry this time, something that she had started so long ago for her long-dead mother. It’s of a sunrise, gold intermingling with pinks and oranges, breaking apart the darker sky.

And this time, she looks up right away when he enters. The son is still someone who requires an extra second or two of staring, but this time his attractiveness is secondary to the fact that he is a threat. That his mother is a threat. That they both know, now. And their knowing can ruin her here.

Alina doesn’t greet him, doesn’t acknowledge that his grey stare follows her as she moves from her work table to a counter where the blankets are. She takes them and gives his presence as little acknowledgement as possible when she places them in front of him.

“Thirty coin,” she mutters.

He looks at them, careful not to touch her, which sends both relief and an aching disappointment through her, “You’ve washed them.”

She stares at a point directly over his shoulder, “I can’t have my store smelling of horse.”

Silence stretches between them, palpable and thick. And she can feel his eyes trained on her, waiting for her to give him a hint of an opening.

“What are you.” He finally asks, when she’s about to tell him to just take the blankets and leave.

The question is so strange that she turns her attention to him, that passing of currents hits her again and she takes a shaky inhale, “What?”

The son still seems to have that barely masked anger about him, but now it’s almost even with his curiosity, “You’re…like me,” he finally offers, “What are you?”

Alina backs away, a little, fingers curling defensively into her palms, “I’m an embroiderer. Unless that’s a spare hobby of yours, we are nothing alike.”

His attention drifts towards the tapestry on her worktable, and she feels the need to roll her work up and store it in a cupboard somewhere, if only so he can’t look at it that way, “Are you from the village.”

Alina’s eyes narrow, “You haven’t paid me yet.”

The son’s head tilts to the side, and she sees that he doesn’t hide the amusement in his eyes, “Is that a precursor to asking you questions?”

“Absolutely.”

He reaches into his pocket and withdraws her coin, placing it onto the counter between them, “What’s your name.”

That much he more than already knows from the baker’s wife, that miserable woman, “Alina.”

“Are you afraid of me, Alina?”

She frowns, “Yes.”

The son looks taken aback by her candor, “Why?”

“Because you and your mother know.”

His lips go into a tight line, an expression not unlike the one his mother makes at her, “…We know what it means to hide.”

Alina takes a deep breath, “But you don’t owe me your secrecy.”

He leans forward and it takes every muscle she has not to move back again, “Do you owe us yours?”

The space between them is enough to establish a distance, but not enough for her to resist ideas of grabbing his wrist again. The part of her that hid her powers wanted to-- to feel that strange, urgent call that formed lightning in her veins again.

Alina kept her hands on the counter.

“You never told me what you were,” the son says, quietly.

Alina bites down on her lip, “You never even told me your name.”

The question takes him by surprise, and she notices that second of hesitation that so clearly marks his next statement as a lie, “Piotr.”

She nods, trying not to feel scared of this new direction of civility, “I’m an embroiderer, Piotr,” she steps back from him, towards her worktable, “And that’s all.”

She can almost taste his disappointment in the air, and his next words have a cooler edge to them, “If you remember we’re travelers, then I’ll remember that.”

Alina snorted, sitting at her usual chair, and carefully moving the tapestry to her lap, “Your mother already gave me this warning.”

“You’ve spoken to my mother?”

“Yes,” Alina brings her needle through the cloth. She’s not sure why she says it, but it comes out regardless, “She says you find me interesting.”

She expects the comment to get him to leave, but instead she only hears his next words, spoken quietly.

“You are interesting.”

Alina focuses so intently on her work that she almost stares a hole through it, “I just want to get by. That’s all.”

His tone is still even, “Will you let me guess?”

She doesn’t look away from the motion of her needle piercing the cloth, then resurfacing. Like a fish swimming on the top of a river, “Guess what?”

“What you are.”

Alina feels herself scowl, “Why.”

“…because I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like you.”

She’s not sure why that comment makes her ears burn, but it does. “Fine,” she grumbles, “One guess a day,” she turns on her stool to face him, “And only if you bring me work to do.”

His face is expressionless, as he seems to contemplate this. Finally, he says, “I’ll leave you to your art.”

And Alina silently watches him exit her shop, blankets in hand.

After a few moments, she decides that she doubts she’ll see him again, and returns to her tapestry.

She threads another sunbeam.

…no one has ever called it art before.

\--

She’s finishing a set of cuffs on a jacket when he returns the next day. In his hands is an old cloak, black and tattered, and he leaves it on her counter.

“Do you summon fire?” He asks, not bothering with a greeting.

Alina’s eyes widen, and she shakes her head.

He nods, satisfied to be wrong apparently, and goes to leave. Alina lifts the cloak off the counter, the fabric pinched between her thumb and index finger, and calls out to his retreating back.

“What am I supposed to do with this?”

He shrugs, and keeps walking.

\--

That night, Alina sits by the fire in her small house, and embroiders the edges of it with gold.

If nothing else, it at least looks expensive and she can charge him accordingly.

\--

The next day, he returns with a vest. Black once again.

“Do you control the wind?”

Alina shakes her head, “Paying, first. Question, second.”

She puts the cloak on the counter, and he runs his hands over the edges. There’s a hint of amusement to his face, “Gold?”

She raises an eyebrow in challenge, “Twenty coins.” It’s a steep price for the work she’s done, especially when the cloak itself isn’t worth that amount to begin with. But it’s a way for her to get him to leave her alone, and perhaps think twice about returning.

Piotr puts the coins on the counter without ceremony, and repeats his question.

Alina sighs, “No. I do not summon fire or control the wind.”

This time, he hesitates before he leaves, but then he leaves all the same.

\--

The vest she lines in gold once again, dancing edges and a repeating pattern of circles and the vines of flowers.

\--

“Twenty-five coins.”

“Can you move the water?”

“I don’t summon fire, control the wind, or move water.”

Piotr only frowns, before taking off his hat and leaving it on the counter.

\--

The hat she embroiders with the image of a stag.

\--

The next morning, it is not the son who enters her store, but the mother.

The woman scowls deeply at Alina, watching as she finishes the last touches of her son’s hat. “You’ve made quite a fortune off my boy’s foolishness.”

Alina meets her gaze steadily, “No one forces him to pay.”

The woman returns it, “You do remember my opinion on games?”

She nods.

The woman does not move from her position, and now seems to stare straight through her, “Be careful about which ones you choose to play.”

Alina sits, contemplating this for a moment. After a second of deliberation, she stands and wordlessly holds the hat out to her, but the woman sneers at it.

“And what would I do with such a thing?”

The younger woman shrugs, “It belongs to Piotr. And there’s no need to pay if this means he’s done seeing me.”

The woman frowns at her, before something in her seems to resolve itself, “Keep it. If he wants to waste his coin on frivolities, maybe he’ll learn a lesson when the coins are gone and his cloak is no warmer for it in the winter.”

She leaves without further comment, but Alina can’t help but feel like she’s passed some sort of test.

\--

He returns the next day, “How much for the hat?”

Alina bites the inside of her cheek as she hands it to him, careful not to touch his skin with her own. He runs his long fingers over the stag thoughtfully.

“Two coins.”

Piotr’s head snaps up, “Only two?”

Alina tries to look at anything other than his surprised expression, “It was a simple design.”

It’s a lie. And she’s certain he knows it judging by his hesitance when he places the coins on the counter.

“I don’t mind paying.”

She feels the corner of her mouth lift up, “Then in your travels, you can repay me by letting all of your admirers know where you got such impeccable work.”

He stills, and his next words are softer, “…you don’t travel?”

Alina shakes her head, and her eyes land on the window, the one that faces the butcher’s shop across the market, “The valley is my home.”

“You could make more money for your work, living in a city,” he offers, staring down at the stag again, “Your talents are wasted here.”

Alina’s teeth grind together, and she feels the flare of something ugly in her before she smothers it down with tersely clipped words, “It’s only wasted if I feel like it is.” And, because his words are words she has heard before, she decides it is time to move the game forward again, “What is your guess.”

He looks up, but his thumbs are still running over the threads she has stitched into his hat, “I don’t have one for today,” he lies, “Perhaps I’ll have one tomorrow.”

Piotr pulls a glove from his hand, leaving it behind as he exits without another word.

\--

She starts to embroider the back of the glove with a sun, before she stares at the circular outline she’s made, and sets it aside. For some reason, it is hard to concentrate on her work this night.

\--

When he comes in again, Alina puts the glove on the counter, “This can count for two,” she amends, looking at the golden circle, “I didn’t finish.”

Piotr stares at the symbol, before he takes the glove and puts it on his hand, “I like it,” he states quietly, and Alina wonders what it is about the tiny amount of color against the darkness that holds his attention so. He clears his throat, “Are you a healer?”

She shakes her head.

He leaves his other glove behind, and for some reason Alina wishes that he would stay for a moment or two, despite her better judgment.

\--

When he goes to pay for his other glove, which she has matched to accompany the first, she decides to change how she plays.

“Why do you come here every day?” She asks, eyes narrowed and her fingers sore from the hours of needlework she has performed for the man standing across from her.

Piotr doesn’t answer the question, instead he withdraws coin from his pocket, “How much for this one?”

Alina shakes her head, “I already owe you two. But answer my question.”

He takes his time considering his answer, “Why do you embroider my things every night?”

“I need the work.”

“Is that the only reason.”

She hesitates, “The only reason you need to concern yourself with.”

Piotr, once again, leans on the counter between them. His long form seems to take up all the available space that was previously occupied by air, “I come every day because you interest me, Alina. And because I find your work beautiful. And, mostly, because I am curious.”

The words are plain enough to be honest.

She doesn’t know what to say, so instead she merely offers him his other glove, “Here.”

He reaches for it, and this time she’s startled when his fingers intentionally rest over her own. The spark is there, once again. Powerful and electric and demanding. Alina feels a rush of fear flood her, but when she meets his eyes and sees his awed expression, that fear subsides a little. When she doesn’t pull away, he moves his fingers to lock with hers, the glove falling to the counter underneath their joined hands.

She wants to drop his hand, she wants to pull him closer. Whatever this is, it’s nothing she’s ever felt before in this valley. Because there’s no one like  _her_ in this valley.

No one but him.

“What are you doing?” She asks, because she knows this isn’t her. This isn’t how her curse, her secret, manifests itself.

His awed expression shifts abruptly into a skeptical one, and he stares at her in disbelief, “You don’t know?”

Alina shakes her head. She’s not sure if she’s imagining him shifting closer.

He breathes in, “Can you hold hearts?”

She startles, “What?”

And sees him smile, “Your power.”

Alina licks her lips, “No-“

“Don’t let me interrupt,” comes a shrewish, immediately familiar voice. Alina drops his hand as if it’s struck her with lightning.

Piotr backs away much more slowly, and both turn to look at the woman who quite intentionally meant to interrupt despite her statement to the contrary.

The look the baker’s wife gives to Piotr is pure poison, but she fastens on a slightly more pleasant smile when she places a dress in front of Alina, “If you’re not terribly busy with the young man,” she says in a tone she no doubt believes is conspiring, “I’d like something done with this for the spring festival.”

Piotr stays quiet, but Alina feels his stare on her hands as she takes the dress, “What were you thinking?”

“Something spring, flowers maybe. Anything flattering,” the old baker’s wife raises an eyebrow, and presses with all the subtlety of a brick, “So how is your Oretsev boy?”

Alina wonders, uncharitably, if the baker’s wife even cares about the dress. If she’s not just using it as an excuse to facilitate gossip, “The butcher’s is within walking distance. You could ask him yourself.”

“He’s so dreadfully hard to get ahold of lately. Poor boy spends most of his time in the woods,  _hunting_ of all things,” the baker’s wife tsks, “And  _everyone-_ “ she sends a meaningful glare over her shoulder, where Piotr stands motionless, grey eyes observant, “-knows how close you are.”

Alina sighs, taking the dress and bringing it back to her work table, “I’ll have it ready in a week.”

The baker’s wife gives a soft  _humph!,_ before she points a finger at Alina, “Check on the Oretsev boy, it’s not right to let someone reduce himself to  _pining_ you know.”

Alina rolls her eyes, “If Mal’s pining it’s not something I brought him to,” and she makes sure there’s a note of finality in her tone, “Is that all?”

The baker’s wife frowns, her displeasure at the lack of ammunition Alina provided her clear on her face, before she sighs as if the weight of the world is upon her boney, instigating shoulders, “Come by tomorrow and I will set aside those sweet rolls you like so much.”

Alina blinks, “What’s the occasion?”

The older woman crosses her arms, “It would just do you well to remember the values of home.”

She feels her jaw clench, “…I’ll keep that in mind.”

The baker’s wife gives a final nod, and a final sneer over her shoulder, before she goes.

Piotr watches her retreat, before turning back to her. And Alina feels like he’s waiting for her to give an explanation for something. She curls her fingers into her hands, and tries hard not to think of Mal, and how much it hurts not to think of him. Of how that hurt was compartmentalized and pushed to the side, when she focused instead on her work for the traveler.

“She doesn’t like you,” is all she can muster, when the silence gets to be too much and the expectation for her to speak too heavy.

Piotr, for once, somehow looks small, “She isn’t alone.”

Alina manages a grin she doesn’t entirely feel, “I don’t mind you.”

His eyes widen, and Alina cuts him off before he can speak again, “I mean, I don’t know you. But I don’t,” she waves a hand in front of her face in a circular motion, as if it would generate an answer just like a windmill generated power, “Not like you.”

The soft smile he gives her somehow manages to be both disarming and unsettling. He steps closer to her, and Alina feels the weight of his presence more acutely than she did even a few moments ago. Piotr moves, hand going into his pocket.

He withdraws a simple handkerchief.

“I’m going to run out of guesses, eventually.”

Alina takes the cloth, not touching his skin, “I think you’ll run out of coin, first.”

He takes a moment to release his grip, “We’ll see.”

\--

The next morning she only charges him one coin for the handkerchief, embroidered with a simple songbird.

Piotr looks at her store, and the question he asks surprises her, “Do you live by yourself?”

“Yes,” she replies after her mind has had time to process the question, “Why.”

He leans against the counter, a thoughtful expression on his lips, “You seem lonely.”

Alina straightens in her seat, “I’m not.”

Piotr watches her with those damnably cold eyes, “You don’t have to be,” he agrees.

She closes her eyes, pausing from her work on the baker’s wife’s dress, “ _You’re_ the one who’s a traveler.”

He looks away, “I am.”

Alina exhales slowly, opening her eyes to see that he is staring at the window, looking across to where the butcher’s shop is. She rubs the bridge of her nose, suddenly feeling tired, “Do you have a guess?”

Piotr turns to face her, “Do you form poisons or explosions?” The way he asks makes her believe that he already knows her answer to this question.

“No,” she says.

The two of them sit in companionable silence. Until he reaches over to tuck a piece of her hair behind her ear, and then he leaves.

It’s not until she’s finished with a sleeve of the dress that she realizes he left nothing behind for her to work on.

\--

That night, as she is starting to drift off into sleep, she hears a knock on her door. Alina jolts out of bed immediately, pulling on a warmer housecoat over her nightdress. Her hand almost ignites in sunlight automatically, but she manages to grab a candle instead.

She is not sure if she is surprised or not when she sees Piotr on the other side of her door frame. He stands, hands deep in his black, gold-lined cloak, and looks as if he can’t quite believe he’s here. And that he can’t believe she’s there, either. For some reason, the thought makes her irritated. What did he expect, at this hour?

“I wasn’t sure if you lived here,” he confesses.

She snorts, bringing the candle up to illuminate the both of them. Piotr’s eyes train on the flame, “I forgot, I clearly have enough gold for a side palace.”

He continues to stare, and Alina shifts her weight to the other foot uncomfortably. The night beyond the threshold of her store is still and deep, and she can hear the chirping of frogs or crickets. It’s the only thing that happens, for a few moments, before she frowns.

“What are you doing here?”

Piotr takes a step forward, but does not cross her doorway, “I wanted to use my other two guesses,” he whispers.

She scowls, “Then use them tomorrow. You shouldn’t be here so late.”

He moves his attention from the flame to her eyes, and she sees something somber in his gaze, “Will you walk with me, Alina?”

Alina looks at him, to the darkness behind him, and she doesn’t answer. She has known Piotr for barely a week, and that is not an appropriate enough time to know someone before taking isolated walks in the dark with them. But every time she’s near him, she feels that call. That siren’s song of-

…of like to like.

Alina inhales slowly, and lifts the candle up between them with severity, “You won’t murder me?”

The corner of his mouth twitches, “No.”

She lifts the candle higher, so it’s in line with his eyes, “Or rob me?”

“No.”

Her eyebrows raise skeptically, “Or attempt to steal any virtue I might have?”

The twitch of his mouth settles nicely into a smile, “…No.”

She takes her time lowering the candle. “…Then I will get my boots.”

\--

They walk out of the village in silence, into the nearby woods of the valley. She keeps the candle glowing between them, and he gives her his cloak to wear.

“Where are we going?” She finally asks, as they go deeper in to the trees, “Because this is starting to seem like you’re about to break one of the three conditions.”

Piotr doesn’t smile, but she senses his amusement as though he had, “I don’t want anyone to see.”

“…that is not reassuring.”

He pauses in his step, turning to face her, “Can you change metal or cloth?”

“…I embroider for a trade,” she says, slowly.

“Not like that. Can you…” he pauses, “Temper steel with a wave of your hand?”

She shakes her head, and a tension falls over him like a sheet. He reaches for the fingers that are not holding the candle, and she lets him grab them. Feels the effect of his touch wash over her like a wave. It becomes less startling every time it happens.

“Alina,” he asks quietly, “What are you?”

The fear comes back. Because she has known him for barely a week, and that is also not an appropriate enough amount of time to give him a secret. She turns, walking forward again, and her fingers slip from his.

“You have to guess.”

He sighs, and they walk further in silence. Finally, when they are so deep into the forest that there is no longer a village to look back at, he halts in his step and she stops a moment after.

Alina turns to face him, and Piotr is already looking at her with an intention that unsettles her.

“What is it?” She asks, and she feels that thrum of power in her chest, and knows she can and will use it on him if she has to. If he is not what he seems.

“I’ve never met anyone like you,” he says, and she’s taken back to the first time he said it, when their deal was created.

“You’ve mentioned that before,” she replies carefully, bringing the candle in front of her.

His eyes are light enough to still be seen in the shadows that surround them, “Because of that, I’ve decided to trust you.”

Alina frowns, “You don’t know me.” She, after all, does not trust him.

“I would like to,” he admits, and he takes a deep inhalation, “But you must know that if you share this with anyone, even your friend...”

“Then don’t tell me.”

Even in the dark, she can see his eyes widen. It takes him a moment to recover, “You aren’t curious?”

Alina moves to take a seat on a nearby log, “I’ve followed you out into the dark in a dressing gown. Of course I’m curious,” he stays standing, “But I understand what it is to keep a secret. And I don’t want to keep two.”

Piotr moves almost silently across the forest floor, and he sits next to her, close enough that she feels the heat of him through his clothes, but far enough that they are not touching. “Don’t you ever wish…” his hand goes to cover hers again, and Alina feels her back tense, “That you didn’t have to keep it secret.”

Alina frowns, “Of course I do. I’ve given up-“ she thinks of impossibly blue eyes, of warm hands, of bright smiles, and she can’t finish the sentence because it suddenly hits her that some part of her has already given up ever having a life with Mal. And the reality of it hurts worse than any knife.

As if sensing her turmoil, Piotr’s hand grips hers gently, “Let me tell you my secret, Alina. You don’t have to give me yours.”

Alina turns to look at him, and that comradery, that bond, hits her again as he turns her hand over and threads his fingers through her own. She doesn’t know why she agrees, but she does, and at her nod he lifts his other hand in front of her eyes.

“Watch,” he commands, his voice a breath on her ear.

She does.

At first she sees nothing but Piotr’s outstretched hand, his long, pale fingers stark against the darkness of the forest and almost luminous in the light of her candle. But then, in slow, small movements, she watches as the darkness bends around his palm. The shadows swallow his skin like an ocean would swallow a boat, whirling and dancing into an almost funnel shape, before the ribbons of shadow spin over his fingers and into an orb held above the center of his hand.

The hand she has in his goes lax, and he grabs onto it tighter. And Alina recoils, watching the shadows and somehow knowing this is not a power those like them should have.  That this is not ordinary. That this is as unusual as her own, isolated ability.

“Don’t be afraid,” his voice is again directly in her ear, a hushed, heated whisper that almost seems to be a plea. The shadows uncurl from the orb, back into ribbons that move over and underneath his fingers like waves.

Her heart is hammering in her chest. She knows he feels her hand go clammy in his. For some reason, tears sting in her eyes, and she feels something lessen and unwind within her.  _He is like her._

“Alina?” He asks with obvious hesitance, and Alina feels the tears roll down her cheeks.

And she decides. Foolishly, she decides.       

Her voice is near breaking as she extends the candle out in front of them, “Can you dim this.”

Piotr still watches her with something that might be fear, but he nods, and the shadows grow to cover the candle. She sets it down on the ground once it’s extinguished.

It goes out, and they sit in the dark together, breathing matching and hands still joined. Until a small, round dome of sunlight appears in Alina’s palm.

\--

They spend the rest of the night together in the woods, threading beams of light and shadow together and basking in the knowledge that they are no longer as alone as they may have been before.

\--

Then he walks her home. And as Alina opens the door, ready to retreat back into the world where her power is just hers and something never meant to be shared, she hears him speak behind her.

“I had one more guess.”

Alina smiles, and turns to face him, “Would you have guessed correctly?”

He’s looking at her with an expression she can’t place. And he takes a few, quick steps until he is standing before her. Piotr says nothing as he cups a hand alongside her face and presses his lips down to hers. It’s a quiet movement, and as Alina kisses him back she feels something like relief fill her. Her hand moves over his, and she closes her eyes, enjoying the simplicity of the moment before he pulls away.

“No,” he whispers, forehead resting against hers, “It would have been wrong.”

\--

He stops coming to her store every day, and instead comes to her door every night.

 


	2. The First Life: The Firebird (part ii)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Assuming the Darkling is old as shit, and therefore when he’s a teenager the Firebird legends weren’t quite widespread across Ravka yet. Also Alina sucks at storytelling, so there’s I have the actual folk tale I’m basing the festival (and this life, actually) on at the end of the chapter!
> 
> On that note, things will move a lot faster romantically than they do in canon proper. Big part of that is because the Darkling is just a seventeen year old with his first, real crush instead of an ancient, semi-eternal loner, so I figured he’d be more open (and quick) with his affections in this timeline.

  **The First Life: The Firebird, Part II**

 

**iii.**

Days move slowly in what might be young love, and nights all too quickly. A week becomes a month, and a month becomes a few months, and every evening passes the same: he comes to her door, but does not enter, and they walk until they are far enough away from everyone else to only be with each other. Their powers dance together until the early hours of morning, but after the first week, they don’t just use their time to make ribbons of shadow and sun.

Some nights, he tells her stories of his travels: of villages, and cities, and his desire to see more still. She learns that his mother’s name is Yana, though she doubts that is the truth.

Some nights, she tells him of her life in the village: of growing up an orphan, of the festivals, and even sometimes about Mal, her only and best friend for so long.

Other nights they are silent, her head on his shoulder and his eyes watching the sunlight in her palm almost hungrily.

But every night, they sit with hands held between them. And most nights, he kisses her goodbye after he walks her home.

\--

The baker’s wife notices when Alina comes in to her store with dark circles around her eyes, and she definitely notices one particular morning that Alina buys her rolls with a black and gold cloak around her shoulders.

And the baker’s wife talks, as she always does.

\--

On one of their many nights together, they are lying on the grass, looking at stars, when he asks her a question without asking.

“All of the villagers are tying feathers to their door.”

Alina has one arm folded behind her neck, and the other is outstretched, fingers dancing patterns that the light trails after, mimicking the constellations in the sky, “It’s for the spring festival.”

She isn’t aware that he’s watching her fingers move until he has lines of shadow chase the movements of her light. She smiles as she sees the dark patterns copy hers, and makes her own designs more complicated in challenge, a regular game they play between the two of them.

“What do feathers have to do with spring.”

She rolls her shoulders, “They’re for the Firebird.”

Piotr’s shadows eclipse her summons, and she lowers her hand in defeat. As soon as her fingers touch the grass, he has his own rest over them, both summons extinguished.

“Like on the skirt.”

It takes Alina a moment to realize what he’s referring to, but then she remembers the embroidery she did for Ruby so long ago. She’s surprised he remembers it, “Yes, it’s…” she shrugs, “It’s a common tale, here in the valley.”

“I’ve heard of the Firebird before,” he agrees, “But I didn’t know there were festivals dedicated to it.”

Alina turns her head to face him. It’s still dark, but with the moon and the stars she can see enough to catch the outline of his profile as he continues to stare up at the sky. A small, tired smile forms on her lips.

“There’s a lot of different tales about the Firebird in Ravka,” she says, cradling the side of her face against her arm now and trying to stifle a yawn, “In our valley, we usually tell the one about the Firebird once being a woman.”

He shifts, and she realizes that he, too, is now lying on his side. Their faces are inches apart.

“A woman?”

Alina nods, “She refused to leave the valley, and Death wanted her for himself. And there’s something about sewing and a kingdom in there, too.”

She feels him move closer, “You are,” and his lips press against her forehead, “A remarkable storyteller.”

Alina rolls her eyes, “It’s hard to be poetic when it’s late,” to emphasize this, she yawns before continuing, “Anyways, she’s turned into a bird, and she flies over the valley, dropping feathers to remind us to look for beautiful things.”

His hand goes to the side of her neck, thumb moving slowly over the line of her jaw, but she ignores it to finish her story, “They say the Firebird comes from those mountains,” she points to them, though he isn’t watching anything but her and it’s impossible to see them in the dark anyways, “every spring to shed her feathers in the meadow. The children collect them, and then the women tie them to the doors to show the Firebird that we remember her.”

Piotr’s head tilts, as if listening for the first time, “So the Firebird is real?”

Alina pauses, “It’s just a story.”

“One you believe,” he observes.

“…Maybe. It’s not like I’ve ever left the valley to find out.”

She sees his smile in the dim light, “And did you gather feathers in the meadow?”

Alina feels something like loss hit her at the question, “Once,” she mumbles, “With Mal.”

He tenses at the statement, and his tone is cautious, “The butcher’s son.”

“Yes.”

He runs his thumb across her cheek, “You’ve mentioned him before.”

“I miss him,” she admits.

The hand on her neck goes still, and his voice is quiet, “Do you love him?”

Alina blinks, having never really considered the question. There was always just the two of them, just Alina and Mal. One never came without the other. Until Mal began to hold her hand and look at her with promises in his eyes, “I can’t love him,” is all she says instead, “And I’ve always known that.”

“Because he is _otkazat’sya_?”

Alina blinks, “What?”

Piotr pauses, as if he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t, and she can practically hear his mind trying to come up with a more polite response, “It’s a word for those who are…not like us.”

She looks guiltily at their joined hands, and decides to answer honestly, “Yes. It’s not-” Alina bites down on her lip, “-it’s not safe to be like us. Or to be with those like us.”

Piotr shifts until his elbow is propping him into a half lean, and he hovers over her, “What’s happened here, to those like us?”

Alina frowns, “I don’t know for sure. No one talks about it. But there are rumors.”

“What sort of rumors.”

She inhales, and her heart starts to beat faster in her chest, “…I’m sure they’re the same as everywhere else.”

He looks at her, and she feels the intensity of his stare in the dark. Sees the determined set of his jaw as he brings their joined hands up to his lips. He kisses her knuckles, and Alina curls her fingers tighter against his at the warm contact.

“Then I will be the one to keep you safe.”

She exhales, and does not think of blue eyes as she looks into grey ones, “Then I guess I am the one that has to keep you safe. For fairness’ sake.”

He shifts, and suddenly he is hovering over her, his long arms and legs framing the sides of her body. He doesn’t release her hand, and she doesn’t tense or cower. One of his legs moves between hers.

Alina raises an eyebrow, “I thought we had an agreement about my virtue.”

“I don’t want you to love Mal,” he confesses suddenly.

She bites down on her lower lip, “Why.”

“Because,” and she’s not sure if she’s imagining the hesitance in his words, “I want there to only be me.”

Alina rests her free hand against his chest, wrapping her fingers in the edge of his vest, “…is there only me?”

She feels his heart thrum underneath her palm, “Yes.”

Her fingers tighten in the cloth, “Then I’ll try.”

Piotr smiles, and kisses her like he has all the time in the world to do so.

\--

Neither go home that night.

\--

“My name is Aleksander,” he says suddenly on a different night a few days later, her head resting on his shoulder as they sit together on the log that has managed to become theirs.

Alina’s eyebrows rise.

He looks at her out of the corner of his eye, “What?”

She shrugs, “I like Piotr better.”

His hand covers her shoulder, rubbing slow circles with his thumb, and she feels his quick, small laugh vibrate against her ear.

\--

The long days and short nights continue in a blur, until one morning it is the butcher’s son who is waiting for Alina outside of her door along with the rays of the sunrise.

\--

Mal has a bow slung over his shoulder, and the start of a beard on his cheeks, and he eyes Alina and her companion with a heavy but expectant stare.

“Early for a walk, isn’t it?” He asks hollowly, bright blue eyes narrowing in on where their hands are joined. On reflex, Alina tries to pull her fingers away, but Piotr’s grip tightens.

“Mal,” Alina whispers, and it suddenly feels like years instead of months since she’s last spoken with him. Shame floods her, when she realizes just how long it’s truly been since they’ve seen each other, aside from the spare amount of furtive glances across the market place.

The butcher’s son looks from Alina to Piotr, and his gaze hardens once it rests on the traveler, “Can we talk?” He finally mutters, though he keeps eyes trained on Piotr.

Hope seizes her, and she nods, taking a step forward. Piotr does not let go of her hand, and Alina turns back to him with a frown.

“Piotr?”

His grey eyes slide toward her and he lets go of her only to move closer. He places his hands on each side of her face, and brings his lips to hers in a way that he has done dozens of times before. Today, though, it feels like the action is not for her, and Alina frowns when he pulls away.

“I’ll see you tonight?” He asks in a quiet whisper, hands still cupping her face.

Alina brings her own fingers to his wrists, and she gently removes his hold, “…Yes.”

He looks over her shoulder, where she knows Mal is standing, before he nods.

Alina watches him go, and the frown is still fixed on her lips.

Mal sighs, and the sound makes her turn her attention back to him as he runs a hand through his hair, “At least now I know where you’ve been.”

Alina fights the urge to wince, “Were you even looking?”

He stares at her in disbelief, “Do you need to ask me that?”

Yes, she does. But she also knows that she doesn’t have a right to do so. Alina takes a deep breath, steadying herself as she opens the door to her store.

“Let’s go inside. I’ll…make tea.”

Mal gives a forced grin that he obviously doesn’t feel, “I’ll go the apothecary and buy rat poison instead. It will go down smoother.”

She matches it, even though she knows her eyes are starting to water slightly, and she holds the door open for him, “At least I don’t charge for mine.”

He walks past the threshold, a sadness in his own stare, “But the rat poison’s quicker.”

\--

She brews the tea in silence, and she’s almost positive it’s not entirely burned when she strains it and pours a cup for herself and Mal. He takes it, and their fingers brush. His touch is still warm, something soothing instead of jarring.

“You could have just told me,” he finally whispers, as Alina withdraws to sit across from him.

She closes her eyes, “It didn’t happen until…after.”

Mal’s eyebrows furrow, “After.” He repeats in a dull voice.

Alina nods, and when she opens her eyes she stares at the boards of her floor.

Her friend, her family, takes a sip of the tea and scowls before immediately setting it on her counter, “Is he…courting you?”

His words sound like they are being pushed through the grinders of his trade, and Alina frowns at the question. “I don’t think so,” she finally allows. She’s not sure what he’s doing. What she’s doing with him. Doesn’t know how to give a name to what’s been quickly, but undeniably, forming between them.

“I love you,” he says simply.

The words feel like a slap. And something that cannot be taken back. Her fingers tighten around the mug of tea.

“And I’ve missed you.”

Alina takes a ragged breath, “I’ve missed you, too,” she confesses, because she can’t confess to anything else. Not with what she is, and what he is. The word _otkazat’sya_ dashes through her mind, and Alina feels something curl in her stomach.

“Good,” he replies softly, though the lack of a response to his first statement hangs in the air between them, “I don’t want…I’m not expecting -“ he runs a hand over the scruff of his beard, “I don’t want to not have you in my life, Alina. Even if it means that he’s in it, too.”

Alina bites through her lower lip so hard she can almost taste blood. And part of her decides that she needs to tell him. He needs to know _why_ she can’t love him. Why she’s kept her distance, why she can’t ever return what he gives her. Because if there’s anyone, _anyone,_ in the valley she can trust, it’s him. And he deserves to know.

She is turning phrases around in her mind, trying to find the right way to tell him, when he speaks again.

“There’s something you need to know,” he sounds almost guilty.

Alina is torn from her thoughts, “What?”

Mal looks away from her, staring intently at the tea cup, “The baker’s wife has been talking.”

She stares at him, “…the baker’s wife is always talking.” He scowls, and it’s such a dark expression that Alina feels herself shrink slightly in her seat, “What has she been saying?”

Mal still doesn’t look at her, “This doesn’t have anything to do with…with me,” he clarifies, and Alina is suddenly nervous, “But. There’s rumors. About them.”

She doesn’t have to ask who he’s referring to, and she is acutely reminded of how much she hates gossip, “What sort of rumors.”

“They say they’re criminals, but.” He frowns again at the tea cup, “They’re saying they might be Grisha, too.”

The word sounds so hollow, coming from Mal’s mouth.

She’s going to be sick, “We…haven’t had Grisha in the valley.”

“They aren’t from the valley.”

Her heart’s in her throat, and suddenly she’s not talking about Piotr and Yana, “…what if they are?”

Mal finally looks at her, and his face is so grave that her heart breaks for it, “Then they’re dangerous, Alina.”

It’s one thing to give up on a life with Mal, it’s another to hear it slip away.

“They aren’t,” she states, trying not to sound like the words are choking her. Alina remembers the promise she made to Piotr, and she needs to protect him just as much as she needs to protect herself, “He’s never…”

Mal stands, and he goes to grab her hand, but stops himself. It hurts. Everything about this hurts. “Just be careful, Alina.” He stares at her like she’s about to slip away, too, “I don’t…” his fingers ghost over the back of her palm, “I hate this,” he finally whispers.

Alina watches his hand hover, touching but already out of reach, and agrees, “I hate this too.”

\--

He leaves her store without ever learning her secret.

  **iv.**

She tells Piotr about the rumors that night.

And his reaction is not what she expects. His body tightens, as if in pain.

“The butcher’s son told you this?” There’s an edge to the question. And Alina’s sure he isn’t oblivious that tonight she is very much a girl who has just had her heart broken.

Alina nods, “…Mal doesn’t gossip.”

Piotr grabs her hand, and she lets him. The old fear, the one she has been able to forget the last few months he’s been in the valley, has returned. And it’s returned more strongly, because now she is not the only one with a secret.

“We will have to leave soon,” he whispers, and he rests his head on top of hers, staring into the darkness of the wood, “…I don’t want to go.”

She doesn’t want him to go, either. She doesn’t want to be alone again. She doesn’t want to put her power back into its cage now that it’s been freed. She wants these nights together to continue, to look into his grey eyes every night and see amusement and skepticism and something that she thinks might be affection.

But she doesn’t want him or his mother discovered.

“How many times have you moved?” She asks, because she doesn’t want to realize that he will leave her on the same day she truly realized that she could never love Mal the way he deserved.

“Too many.”

Alina brings light to her free hand, “I will miss this,” she tells the golden dome, making it rounder and spinning it into an orb that is not unlike the first one he made for her.

Piotr’s silent beside her. It’s all very silent, as they watch the sun stay tucked away behind her fingers.

\--

“Alina,” his voice is only a little above a whisper as he walks her to her door, “…May I stay here tonight?”

She looks at him, at the sad set of his shoulders. And she thinks of snuffed candles and burned tea before she answers.

“Alright.”

\--

The next morning, Piotr runs into the baker’s wife as he leaves her home.

The baker’s wife, for once, does not have much to say as she drops off some pillows.

\--

The rumors grow, and Alina notices when more eyes than usual start to follow her when she buys her things at the market.

\--

The baker’s wife has decided that she is no longer speaking to her at all, apparently.

\--

She tries not to be afraid as more and more villagers whisper “Grisha” and “sorcerer” when she walks with Piotr. But when a secret’s been kept for so long, fear is the only thing that can still guard it.

\--

A few days after a butcher’s son stood outside her store, a traveling woman walked through the same door.

“You will not ever leave this valley,” Piotr’s mother states curtly, with no hint of doubt.

Alina looks up from the pillow she has finished, and she shakes her head. Because Alina is many things, but an adventurer is not one of them, “No. I won’t.”

“My son is under the foolish impression that he can convince you otherwise,” Yana’s eyes are like the black, glossy sheen of ink wells as they burn a hole through her, “ _Fix it_.”

She hears the threat and the love twined together in the demand, and Alina only has time to nod before Yana storms out just as easily as she has stormed in.

\--

“I spoke with your mother today,” Alina says, as the two of them walk out of the village and to their regular hiding spot, “Or I guess I should say she spoke at me.”

Piotr’s jaw tenses, just for a moment, “What about.”

She turns to him, and decides she is extremely tired of having to do what is best for the men she is half in love with, “Fixing things.”

Piotr stops, and she does too. They aren’t far enough away from the valley as to not be seen, but right now that doesn’t matter. She can’t keep him here. And every night they spend together, she wants to keep him a little more.

“What is there to fix.”

It occurs to her that he’s angry. That she’s seeing the boy who walked into her store with horse blankets again, and that the underlying aura of hostility he carried with him then is starting to show through now.

“I’m staying in the valley,” she makes sure that her resolve is clear in her words.

He glares, “Why.”

Her mind drifts to the baker’s wife. _Because this is your home, and your home should keep you._ “This is where I belong.”

“No,” he spits, “It’s not.”

“It is.”

Piotr grabs her arms, and his grip is tight around her biceps, “They would _kill you,_ Alina. They would break your skull on the rocks, and not think twice about it.”

She knows he’s not lying to her, just as much as she knows that the truth doesn’t change things. “They are the closest thing I have to a family.” And it’s true. Mal, Ruby, even the baker’s meddlesome wife. They are all important to her. They are all kept close to her chest.

“ _They._ ”

Alina frowns, “They.”

“Not Mal.”

“Mal would be part of they, yes.”

Piotr drops his hands from her arms, “You would stay for an _otkazat’sya,_ but you won’t leave for me?”

“I _can’t_ leave for you,” Alina tries to meet his eyes, but he is not looking at her. Instead he looks up at the sky, at the blackness of it that stretches between the few specks of stars, “And I won’t let you stay for me. Your mother’s right.”

“If they find out, they’ll hurt you.”

“I’m tougher than I look.”

“I said I would keep you safe.”

Alina hates the words as they fall off her tongue, but they need to be said, “You can keep me safe by leaving. I’ve hidden what I am for sixteen years, I can keep doing it after you’re gone.”

Piotr tears his gaze away from the sky to stare at her, “You would hide again,” he repeats, stricken.

She doesn’t know why she feels ashamed, but she does. Though that doesn’t matter. Pride she can let go of, if it means they won’t find him, “…Go with your mother, Aleksander.”

He maintains his stare for a few minutes, betrayal evident on his features, before he turns and walks away from her.

She waits by herself in the dark, until she knows he is far enough ahead. Then, she returns home.

\--                           T

Three days pass. And as Alina walks to the baker’s wife (who is _begrudgingly_ speaking to her once more, now that she doesn’t come to her store with a grey-eyed man beside her), she notices that the crowd moves ever so slightly away from her. And that some are staring as if they’re looking for something. A hint, maybe, that Alina is not just the embroiderer who has never left this valley.

\--

On the fourth night, she is starting to drift off into sleep when she hears a knock on her door. Alina gets out of bed hesitantly, pulling on a warmer housecoat over her nightdress. She does not light her hand with the sun, and she does not grab a candle.

And she is not surprised when she sees Piotr on the other side of her door frame. He stands, hands deep in his black, gold-lined cloak, and looks determined to be here. And it irritates her. Because she already knows he is going to expect too much.

“What are you doing here?”

Piotr takes a step forward, and crosses her door, closing it behind him, “I want you to come with me,” he whispers.

“I’m not leaving the valley.”

“What would convince you.”

“Nothing.”

He watches her expression carefully, looking for any hint that her resolve is fading. She doesn’t think she gives him one, but he nods as if he has decided something regardless.

Alina isn’t sure what to make of his arrival here, of his questions. She swallows, “…What is it?”

Piotr’s smile is strained, and he gives her a fast, bruising kiss. She barely has time to take a breath before he pulls away and presses his forehead to hers. His words are delivered with a strange combination of giddiness and desperation.

“I’m going to bring you an amplifier.”

Alina doesn’t understand what he’s saying, and she starts to ask him what an amplifier is, but he steps back from her and goes without another word.

Like his mother, he seems to take a storm with him.

 

**v.**

Five more days pass, and Alina watches the door to her store with an increasing dread every morning.

It is not Piotr who comes for her, but his mother instead on the sixth.

And she is furious, the anger rolls off her shoulders in poisonous currents. And Alina realizes, sadly, that she is more worried that something has happened to Piotr than the fact that Yana might be about to do something to her.

“What’s happened?”

Yana’s hands clench tightly by her sides, “I told you to fix this, embroiderer.”

She stands, uncertain, “I did.”

“You failed,” her words are cold and certain, “Because he’s run off to the mountains,” the older woman’s eyes narrow, “And who would ever give him an idea like that.”

Alina doesn’t understand, because they have never talked about going west of the valley. And she doesn’t see how this connects back to her. But for some reason, her mind snags on one particular statement, the one given to her with a promise she couldn’t interpret.

“Yana,” she swallows, “What is an amplifier?”

Yana’s eyes snap to her, and Alina knows she is not imagining how they widen in horror, “You foolish children,” she mutters, “What have you done.”

\--

Yana tells her. And Alina can only think of one thing that might make Piotr want to leave for the mountains.

Because she finally remembers the story she told him weeks ago, while they stared at the stars, about a woman who became a bird. And horror fills her when she realizes what Piotr intends to do to the woman who sheds feathers.

“He means more to me than a thousand of your valleys,” Yana states, “And your valley threatens him.”

Alina understands her implication. And she nods as she grabs her boots, “I’ll stop him,” she promises.

Maybe she is going to become an adventurer, after all.

\--

The sun is still starting to rise when Alina throws a pebble at a window. A few seconds pass, before that window opens, revealing a disheveled blond head of hair.

Mal yawns, blinking sleep from his eyes as he looks down. He instantly becomes more alert when he realizes who it is, “Alina?”

She bites her lip, “Have you been to the mountains?”

Mal frowns, “Yes. Why?”

She inhales, and realizes he is going to have her secret today even if she never meant to give it, “…I need your help.”

\--

Two hours later, Mal is walking ahead of her in silence, sending her fleeting and questioning looks over his shoulder as he guides her up the treacherous mountain passes.

“He wants to hunt the Firebird?” He asks again, as if still trying to make sense of it.

Alina nods, hoisting her pack over her shoulder.

Mal shakes his head, “Why would anyone want to do that?”

Her eyes widen as she realizes what part of the statement Mal is having trouble accepting, “-you mean the Firebird’s real?”

He looks back at her again, before he hesitantly nods, “I’ve seen it, before. When I was hunting,” his hand pats the quiver strapped to his back, reassuring himself that it is still there. “It was…beautiful,” he admits, “And terrible.”

“Terrible?”

Mal shakes his head, and Alina quickens her pace to walk beside him, “Something about it…,” he looks at her with those bright, blue eyes, “It just seemed like such a lonely creature.”

She stares at the path ahead of them, “Do you think it will attack Piotr?”

He hesitates before answering, “There were bones, at the bottom of the rocks,” is what he settles on.

Alina tightens her grip on her pack, taking a deep breath as her steps become faster.

“Alina?”

“Yes?”

Mal frowns at her, and she can tell he wants to ask her something other than what he settles on, “…You didn’t tell me why he’d want to hunt the Firebird.”

Alina takes a deep breath, and her secrets fall from her mouth like water pouring down a fall.

He stares at her when she does, with a look that mirrors the one Piotr gave her when she said she refused to leave the valley.

They walk on in silence for the rest of the day. As they go higher and higher, Alina, too, begins to see the bones that line the crevices of the mountainside.

\--

They are sitting by a fire when Mal finally speaks to her again.

“How long have you known you were one of them?”

Alina closes her eyes, and reminds herself that Mal is still sitting beside her, and that must count for something, “Before my parents died.”

“And you never told me,” he says, wounded.

She remembers how grave his face had been when he told her the Grisha were dangerous, and she looks at the flames instead of at him, “…I thought you would hate me, if you knew-”

His voice is sad, “I don’t hate you.”

Alina swallows, “-and I couldn’t let you risk knowing.”

She feels his stare, now heated with anger, stay on her face though she does not look up.

“That wasn’t your decision to make.”

\--

The next night Alina feels the call within her, and knows he is nearby.

She looks at Mal’s sleeping form with apology, before she steps over him and leaves the cave where they have made camp. Foolishly, or maybe optimistically, she does not take any of his weapons with her as she follows that silent thread that connects her to Piotr.

\--

She climbs up the winding path and crumbling ledges for a few hours, before she finds him sitting underneath one of the sparse pines that pepper the cliff.  He looks tired, but resolved, and there is a traveling pack and a bow at his feet. When Piotr looks up at her, she is startled to realize that he looks as though he has been expecting her.

“You came,” he greets, pleased.

Alina takes a few, slow steps towards him, “…I know what an amplifier is.”

Piotr’s chin juts out, just a little, “My mother.”

“Yes,” Alina shakes her head, “and I don’t want it.”

Piotr’s fingers tighten into a fist, before his next words are chosen carefully, “It will make you stronger.”

She moves until she stands before his sitting frame, the two of them overlooking the valley, “I don’t need to be stronger.”

He grabs her hand, and she feels that familiar pull towards him with the contact, “If you’re stronger, you can leave the village.”

Alina looks at him, and it’s with a feeling of sadness that she realizes just how very misunderstood he is about why she wants to stay, “I’m not staying in the valley because I’m afraid.”

Piotr presses his lips together in a tight line, an expression now familiar to her, “You know we’re supposed to be together.”

The statement makes her take a half a step back, but Piotr does not release her hand, and his voice is certain, “You _know,_ Alina.”

Maybe she does.

She looks up, to the top of the mountain, to the sky that is starting to pinken with the rising sun, “…let’s go back to the village, Aleksander. Forget about the Firebird.”

Piotr stands, and without releasing her hand he grabs the bow by his feet, “I’ve already found it.”

Alina’s stomach turns to lead, “-what?”

He smiles, almost shyly, at her as he gestures to a small copse of trees across the crevice from them. The trees are thicker and greener than the rest of the skeletal ones in the valley, and there is a long, long fall in between where Alina and Piotr stand and where they grow. Alina looks over the precipice, and sees the gleam of white bone at the bottom, highlighted by the quickly brightening sunrise.

“Every morning, when the sun fully rises, the Firebird lands there,” he says, and as if to confirm his observation, Alina hears a distant caw from somewhere beyond them, “I’ve been here three days now, waiting for you. It has to be you, Alina.”

“…What are you talking about,” she demands, as his fingers tighten around hers.

“You have to be the one to kill it.”

Alina faces him, anger filling her frame, “I don’t want to kill it!”

She sees the confusion register in his eyes, but no more words are said between them, because suddenly the sound of wings and the cackle of fire fills they cliffside and occupies both of their attention. Alina turns, looking up just in time to see brilliant, burning gold catch the light of the sun, and her breath catches in her throat.

The Firebird soars into the crevice.

Drops of fire fall from the span of her wings, dying embers that transform into red feathers before they touch the ground. Alina is suddenly aware of how close she is to the Firebird, closer than anyone like her has a right to be, for she can see the shine of her beak, the haunting stare of her eye.

She’s beautiful. And, as Mal had said earlier, she is also terrifying. Alina and Piotr watch in near suspension as the Firebird circles above them, then the trees beyond the chasm.

Unknowingly, Alina’s fingers tighten against Piotr’s. And, taking that as an invitation, he wraps that arm around her waist and guides her in front of him.

The Firebird caws out again, and there is something human in its cry. Alina is almost frozen in her awe as she stares at it.

Piotr takes the bow, and puts it in her spare hand. Alina feels the smooth wood underneath her palm, and her heart beats faster. She can feel the power that radiates from the Firebird, can sense the strength and command it holds over even the mountains. For a brief, weak moment, Alina thinks of what it would mean, to wear a crown of its feathers around her head, or one of its talons around her throat. Of what it would be like, to be as beautiful and terrifying as the creature above her. The power within her swells and crests, a force of nature wanting to be released. She feels Piotr’s power call out in kind.

“I’ll help you,” he whispers into her ear, as he closes his hand over her own and lifts the bow. Somehow, he has already notched an arrow.

It’s an easy shot. The Firebird is so close she can feel the heat of its flames against her face. She’s shaking.

Piotr’s hands help her guide the arrow back. She can hear her blood in her ears.

The Firebird cries again, and she wonders, briefly, if this is a type of mercy for the creature that is the only one of its kind.

“Ready?” Piotr asks.

She doesn’t know. But he takes her silence as compliance-

“Alina!”

-the sudden shout startles them both, and Piotr’s hand jerks over her own. Mal’s voice echoes from somewhere further down the mountain path, and the shot goes wide, the arrow only clipping the edge of the Firebird’s wing.

Alina’s knees go boneless with relief, as she sees the Firebird spin in the air. And horror fills her, as she realizes what she had almost done.

“-you came with the butcher’s son?” Piotr asks her, in a tone so broken that sorrow almost replaces the dread she feels.

“To find you,” she answers numbly, and she looks down, where Mal is a distant form below, steadily climbing to where they stand.

The Firebird screams, and this time Alina recognizes for certain the very human emotion of rage in its call.

“We need to go,” she whispers, as she realizes that the Firebird has discovered who just tried to kill it.

Piotr stares at her, then down at the advancing form of Mal.

“No,” he finally mutters, and raises the bow.

“Stop!” Alina demands, reaching for it.

His grip on her drops, and he takes a step back, “It’s for you,” he asserts, drawing another arrow.

“There are bones all over this mountaintop!” Alina spits, gesturing beyond the ledge, where the chasm and the graveyard lay, “We need to go-“

And suddenly, the screams of the Firebird are directly above them. And the bird is fast, much faster than either of them anticipate, and Alina has just enough time to freeze in terror as its talons pierce the skin of her shoulder.

Black floods her vision, and she staggers as the skin rips open, as pain bursts through her like small stars.

She hears the whistle of an arrow, and the Firebird shrieks, claws ripping out of her body as quickly as they had torn into it, and Alina is sure her scream can be heard over the entire mountain. “Alina!”

She’s not sure if the arrow or the voice belonged to Mal or Piotr. Instead she sinks to her knees as the Firebird circles over them again.

It occurs to her that the Firebird knew they were in her valley. And that she had not tried to attack them until they had fired that first arrow.

Alina feels warm blood rush over her skin.

And then she instead feels Piotr’s hands on her, trying to get her to move. Alina looks up and sees the fear etched plainly on his face, the way his grey eyes are widened in terror. His lips part, and she sees the words for “I’m sorry” forming, but she doesn’t hear them as her attention instead focuses over his shoulder, where the Firebird is swooping down with its talons outstretched towards Piotr’s back.

She moves before she thinks. Before she considers that she is still very, very close to the precipice that towers over the bones. Alina’s hands go to Piotr’s chest, giving him a hard and final shove. He topples onto his back, and the Firebird’s talons miss.

And sink into her chest instead.

She’s aware of pain blooming in her chest, not unlike the flowers she had embroidered into Piotr’s vest, of her body toppling over back-first, of hearing two voices cry out her name, and then she feels weightless and suspended.

Alina sees the beautiful and terrifying flames of the Firebird, silently apologizes to her, and falls the very long fall to the bottom of the cliff.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End Notes:
> 
> Here’s the tale of the Firebird I based this section on, copy-pasted from Wikipedia :’D :
> 
> According to Suzanne Maisie the story of the Firebird is about a great embroiderer Maryushka, who lives in a small village. People would come from all over to buy her embroidery. Many merchants would try to get her to work for them but she told them all that they could buy her wares but she would never leave the village she was born in. One day the evil sorcerer Kaschei the Immortal heard of Maryushka’s beautiful works and transformed into a beautiful young man and visited her. Upon seeing her ability he became enraged that a mere mortal could produce finer work than he. He tried to tempt her by offering to make her Queen but she refused saying she never wanted to leave her village. Because of this last insult to his ego he turned Maryushka into a firebird and himself into a falcon, picked her up in his talons and stole her away from her village. As a way to leave a piece of herself with her village forever she shed her feathers onto the land below, after the last feather fell Maryushka died in the falcon’s talons. The feathers live on showing themselves to those who love beauty and show beauty to others.
> 
>  
> 
> Next up. The Second Life: The Heretic


	3. The Second Life: The Heretic (part i)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Heretic, part one of three.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the positive feedback! This time frame in canon was left pretty ambiguous from what I could find in the novels, so apologies in advance if something doesn’t line up quite right. I took some liberties. This section is inspired by The Death of Koschei the Deathless, again with some liberties, and will be split into two or three parts (I was way too optimistic when I thought I could do it in one :’|||| )

**o.**

Over one hundred years ago, a girl fell from a cliff. Her bones will stay forever in the valley, but the rest of her went somewhere else.

Over one hundred years ago, a boy and his mother fled from a village. Part of his heart will always belong to that girl, but the rest of it was put away for something else.

They meet again when she is twenty three, in the city of Kribirsk. And the boy has not been a boy for a very long time.

**\--**

In their first life together, he came to her with blankets. In their second, he comes to her in chains.

 

**The Second Life: The Heretic (prt. I)**

**i.**

Rain fell against the sides of the carriage, hard enough to make a sound despite the thick, black-out curtains that hung from its windows. He sat, frowning as he rotated his hands again, trying to alleviate the strain the manacles placed on his wrists. And also to test their extension. It’s not the first time he’s been in trouble with the law, but it is the first time he’s allowed them to capture him for more than a few hours.

“Stop moving the irons,” barks the soldier sitting across from him, and Aleksander stills his hands. He senses, rather than sees, the guard attending him relax when his movements stop, as he does not turn his face away from the dark curtain that blocks the cobbled roads of Kribirsk.

He’s always hated this city. Too loud, too noisy. Too many people pouring their money into jewels and ugly buildings. And he can’t wait to leave it.

But he’s here for a reason.

The soldier across from him is nervous. His throat works every other minute in big, tedious movements. Like he’s afraid to swallow his tongue. His hand moves up and down the handle of his sword. But he yells almost everything, and his eyes are almost as full of hatred as they are of fear.

Aleksander sits straight in his seat. _Soon_ , he reminds himself as the trot of the horse makes echoing noises. Soon he’ll be right where he wants to be.

And this cowardly idiot is only an escort.

The horses slow into a trot, and then finally stop. Aleksander flexes his fingers in anticipation.

The guard of his prison transport stands, “Don’t move,” he orders, sending him a last, nervous look before he opens the barred door and hops out. It slams just as quickly behind him.

Aleksander sits. He doesn’t move. When the door opens again, there are now four incompetent guards instead of just the one. He hides his smirk as they surround him, all with swords at their hips. The one that has been sitting across from him holds a lantern, a small point of light in the dark. The rain falls in sheets outside.

“Go!” He barks.

Aleksander sends him a cool look, before he follows his demand. He doesn’t struggle, but they push him forward anyways, the guards flanking him in almost a circle as he trudges out of the carriage.

And onto the paved, cobbled street of Pravdovret.

The rain soaks him through almost immediately, but he pays it no mind as he looks up at the gate they stand under. Pravdovret, the city within the city, is nearly a fortress. The white, stone wall surrounds the many buildings and palaces that maintain order in the western part of Ravka. There are soldiers, hundreds of them, positioned on top of the wall, armed and ready to shoot intruders with their arrows.

Pravdovret, located in the heart of Kribirsk, is a nearly sacred place in this kingdom, after all: it hosts a winter palace for the Queen, the Justice buildings, the royal cathedrals, the city homes of the nobles.

And further in its belly: the prisons. The execution square. The museums. And the archives.

 No one gets into Pravdovret without an invitation, not if they want to keep their lives. Aleksander flexes his fingers, and the iron chains pull taut. He has managed to find one.

“Walk!” Shouts the guard. In his ear.

Aleksander grinds his teeth. But he walks. They all walk.

Right to the prison.

\--

They put a black bag over his head, and he almost laughs then and there. Being kept in the dark has never been a concern for him.

He pays careful attention as they move. In his head, he keeps time. It is about forty minutes of walking until he hears a door open: a heavy, creaking sound. Old. When he takes a deep breath, he smells mildew, dust, and that strange, earthy smell that accompanies caves. The terrain under his feet begins to feel less like a floor or road, and more like hard, compact ground. The sound of his guards’ boots hitting the ground becomes louder, more compact. It’s a narrow hall.

Soon, they stop again. Another door opens. This one creaks louder, but does not seem to be as heavy.

“What’s this?” Grunts a deep, masculine voice. He sounds older.

Aleksander rotates his wrists again.

“Prisoner.” Says his favorite guard, for once not screaming. His voice takes on an air of trepidation, “ _Grisha._ ”

Aleksander presses his thumb tight against his palm.

“Did you search him?” The old man grumbles.

“Yes.”

The old man snorts, “Do it again. Morevna, check its pockets.”

Aleksander’s jaw clenches. _Its._

The guards’ grips tighten around his arm as he feels light, quick hands pat down his sides and then root in his pockets. The search is thorough, but quick, and the one called Morevna withdraws something from his vest.

“What is it?” The old man calls.

The voice that answers is a woman’s. It’s flat, if not irritated. “Just a handkerchief. With a bird.”

Aleksander goes very still. His heart thuds tightly in his chest. And he can see it in his mind, the yellowed fabric that was once white very, very long ago. The corner decorated in red and gold, a small and simple songbird with fraying wings. The only thing he has left from a mostly forgotten valley.

He is trying to decide which one matters more: his guise as a prisoner, or the desire to cut this woman in half for ever touching what wasn’t hers to touch. The thumb pressed against his palm turns into a fist, and he thinks about how much space he has to swing his arm down-

“Put it back or burn it. We don’t know where it’s been,” the old man commands. Mocking him.

He wants to kill them. Maybe not now, but after. _After,_ he will find everyone in this room and kill them.

The light hand puts something back in his pocket. His muscles uncoil, one by one.

It’s silent for a moment, and there’s the sound of turning pages before the old man speaks again, “Take them down to block AA-23. Cell 2187 is open.”

“Yes, sir.” The voice that answers belongs to Morevna. Aleksander’s hands still. She sounds tired, maybe even bored, “Let’s go, then.”

They walk some more. Ten minutes. One of the guards tries to flirt with the woman, but she keeps silent. There’s the sound of a key turning, a metal gate opening, and Aleksander is pushed roughly into what he can only assume is his cell. The metal gate is swung closed. The key is turned again. And Aleksander stands alone, though the bag remains over his head.

“Who’s on guard tonight?” The guard who screams everything asks.

“I am.” The woman replies, still sounding tired though there is an edge in her statement that dares the guard to question her.

“Who else?”

“Mikhael is stationed two blocks down.”

“…keep your sword drawn,” the shouter finally relents, as if he was looking for the bare minimum to feel guiltless over leaving her with him. Aleksander smiles to himself. They don’t realize that they have just let him know how many guards are on rotation in this section of the prison. Fools.

“I left it upstairs,” she bites out, “Thought I might need the pillow more.”

“Morevna-“

“This is not my first night on duty. You are dismissed.”

The guard sputters, “I outrank you-“

She snorts, “You clearly want to leave, and I would rather have you gone. So go.”

The guard who screams everything is tense when he speaks next. A warning, “Remember your position, Morevna.”

“Remember yours.” Hers is cool. A challenge.

It’s quiet, but Aleksander hears the sound of boots shuffling out, and soon it is only him and the woman in the dark.

About a half hour passes before he hears footsteps draw closer.

“Come here,” the woman says with a sigh, like this is something she has done a thousand times before.

Aleksander doesn’t move.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” she says clearly, “Just want to take the stupid bag off of your head.”

His only response is silence.

“ _Fine_ ,” she mutters, and she steps even closer. Aleksander almost feels pity for her. She is making this all too easy for him. With one hand stroke, he is certain he can use his Cut on her. It might not be exact, due to the nonexistent visibility and the constrained state of his arms, but it will be close enough. Then he can remove his door. And set out to do what he came to accomplish in Pravdovret.

Those light, quick hands reach out before he can, and nimble fingertips pull off the hood. It falls to his feet like a small, crumpled shadow. Aleksander blinks, and the room does not come into focus. It takes him a moment to realize that it is because there is not a single light in the room.

“Sorry,” she mutters, and he can only see the vaguest outline of her face in the dark, “Udinov took the lamps with him and his idiot men.”

Aleksander glares at the slightly less dark spot where she stands. He’s not sure what she’s trying to accomplish, with this misguided attempt at civility, but he is not about to fall for it.

“Hold on-“ and the woman backs away before he has a chance to kill her.

He hears her move across the room, her figure a blurred shadow in the cell block. She doesn’t run into anything, which implies that she is comfortable with her environment. That she’s been a prison guard long enough to know how to navigate with no guidance. He thinks he hears the sound of a chair pulling back.

“So, is it true?” She asks.

He says nothing, trying to gauge exactly where she is.

The woman snorts, giving up apparently. Good.

He hears a drawer open.

“What’s your name?”

The sound of something being taken out of the drawer.

She sighs, “I’m Morevna.”

He thinks he can still manage a Cut. His arm raises slightly-

“Or you can call me Alina, if you want. Seeing as we’re on the way to becoming such great friends.”

“…What.” Aleksander asks in the form of a demand, arm lowering. As soon as he speaks he feels foolish. It’s not a name _she_ had a monopoly on. But it’s enough to unsettle him. To make him think about dark nights in the woods, about unraveling songbirds on cheap, aged cloth.  About the game he didn’t win, so many years ago.

“Oh, so you do talk,” there’s the sound of flint striking, and he sees a shower of sparks emit for a brief moment. They illuminate the cool glass curve of a lantern before it vanishes back to the dark. She strikes it again.

No, he doesn’t. Not to her. Not to any of the _otkazat’sya_ here if he can help it.

Aleksander rotates his wrists in his chains once again. Darkness pools in his palm. He focuses on the outline of the guard. She’s thin. But he can target her. His arm lifts, all the way, and he feels his power sing to him, happy to finally have an outlet after a month of being kept away. And it builds into a crescendo of pressure, before he swings it down.

The lantern finally ignites, casting his guard in a warm light:

Narrow face. Brown hair, with strands falling out from the tight bun in the back of her head. Light brown eyes with purple circles under them. A mouth in a small, perpetual scowl. Skin that was so pale it looked sickly.

His shoulders seize.

_I will be the one to keep you safe._

He snaps his wrist at the last moment, the Cut meant to sever her body in two instead flying through the wall beside her. She cries out, throwing herself on the ground as rock and dust flies, the stone of the cell block cracking in half. Aleksander only stands there, arm still outstretched, as he swallows.

And stares.

She pushes herself up from the ground, but she must be staying in a crouch because she does not stand above the eye-line of the table. And his heart is racing, tongue somehow stuck to the roof of his mouth as he thinks about what it was he actually _saw_ in the low fire of the lantern. Because it couldn’t, possibly, be what he imagined.

A chunk of rock slides out from the wall, collapsing onto the floor. It is at the same exact level as where her head had been.

Aleksander swallows, and for a brief moment he wonders if he did not turn fully in time. And if he cares. Because this isn’t her and he is giving in to a delusion.

The stillness of the aftermath of his Cut is interrupted when a flash of beautiful, golden light furrows down the length of the entire room, cleaving through the bars on his cell door like a hot knife.  He dives, barely in time to avoid being sliced in half, and once on the ground he looks up and tries to process what has just happened:

The desk is split in half.

The lantern is shattered on the ground.

Because of a Cut.

And a woman stares at him with murder in her eyes from behind the ruined desk, twin domes of sunlight in each of her palms. They are the only illumination in the cell block that is suddenly, uncomfortably, dark.

“Don’t move,” she spits.

He can’t.

The woman named Morevna, because she can’t have any other name, takes a tentative step forward. She frowns, looking at him with heavy distrust, but he doesn’t care. He can’t stop looking at the slope of her nose, the curves of her ears, the edge of her jaw. She is so familiar, but she is a stranger. And he has not seen her in…

“As you can see,” the woman speaks, clapping her hands together. The domes expand, filling the room with light. The girl he knew did not have such power, not that he ever saw. She had never wanted to use it. She had kept it locked away except for those nights with him, when they laid on their backs and looked at stars, “I’m on your side. So no splitting me in half-“

She frowns, tilting her head to the side as she watches his expression, “What?” She asks. And she’s confused. Or pretending to be confused.

His heart thuds dully. _She’s not acknowledging him._

Aleksander looks at the light, at her hands.

_You survived._

“You fell from the cliff,” he whispers, accusatory.

And suddenly, he sees it with a clarity he hasn’t seen it with in decades, possibly centuries. Aleksander closes his eyes, and behind them he sees her pushing him away from her, watches her face twist with pain and shock as the Firebird sinks into her chest. Hears the painful, voided silence of her being there one moment, and gone the next. Broken at the bottom of a mountain.

Her eyebrows furrow. Her frown deepens. She does not drop her hands.

_You survived. And you didn’t find me._

“As I said,” she is speaking so carefully. Like he is fragile. And anger rips through him. If he is fragile, it is only because she is _toying_ with him for reasons he cannot understand, “My name is Morevna. And I’m like you.”

_She has tears in her eyes, and he feels horrified and scared. Because she will leave him now. She will try to kill him. And if not, she will tell the village and they will do it for her._

_She has tears in her eyes, as she uncurls her fingers and in her palm is the sun._

_“I’m like you,” she whispers at the end of the night, before he brings her back to her door._

“Why didn’t you tell me,” he hates that his voice is a whisper. That his words sound betrayed.

She steps over the parts of her desk, her hands still raised in front of her. Her eyes aren’t even looking at him, he realizes, but at the bars that cage him. At the damage the walls have taken.

And she _snorts,_ “I tried to,” she kicks the wall near his cell door. A bar falls to the ground and she sighs, shaking her head, “But you apparently wanted to kill me more than listen.”

Shock fills his lungs instead of air. Anger is in his veins instead of blood. And he watches her like she is watching him: like she is a stranger.

“Stop,” he finally manages to spit out, glaring at her from the spaces in between the iron bars.

She stops. But does not lower her hands. And they look at each other, the sound of their breath the only noise in the crumbling expanse of the cell block. Aleksander watches her face, the dark circles, the thin nose, the way the light casts shadows on the planes on of her cheeks. And he _knows._

“Alina.” The name is so strange on his tongue, after all these years. But he has not forgotten her like he has forgotten nearly everyone else. That old, now muted song of like to like hums in his ears—quiet and nostalgic. But present. And growing louder.

“That’s right,” she says slowly, bringing her glowing hand higher, “We’ve been over this part already. Before you decided to chop me in half, that is.”

Alina is staring right at him, with the space between them measured only in inches. And on her face, there is nothing that indicates she remembers him. Nothing that shows she is as affected by him as he is by her. Something ugly washes over him, a flood that makes the skin over his knuckles strain.

“Do you know my name,” he hisses, “Or did you even bother to remember it?”

She warily leans away from him, the lights in her hands dimming. And he watches as she looks him up and down. As she looks at him as if trying to decide if he is insane. He doesn’t understand this game, or how _she_ of all people can play it. But he can’t decipher what this means to him, or why it feels like rejection. Why he is pulling back into himself, as cool and as hard as the metal links that form his chains.

It must have been decades. She has _lied_ to him for decades.

“You fell.” No, because that’s not right. “You let me think you fell.”

Alina doesn’t even acknowledge her betrayal, “We need to move you to a different cell. People will ask too many questions about this one.” Her voice softens, “Trust that I am here to help you.”

He had trusted her. He had trusted her with his life, and she had not returned the favor.

She speaks slower. Like he’s an imbecile. “Mikhael will be back in less than a half hour. If anyone sees this,” she gestures to the wreckage, “They will order your immediate execution. Do you understand?”

Aleksander reaches up to brush her cheek- to remind her of their connection, to convince himself that this is _her-_

And she flinches away.

His hand drops.

“We are going to move to another cell,” spoken with authority. As if she commands him. “I can convince the warden that he mixed up the numbers when assigning your block. Just remember that we are both Grisha, don’t attack me, and I will do what I can to keep you safe.”

She says something else, but he can only hear her last words. Echoing. Smothering.

“I said nod if you understand,” she snaps.

He does, though he doesn’t.

Then he hears the metallic click of a key sliding into a lock. He watches, as she opens the door to his cell. But she doesn’t enter. She doesn’t disarm.

She’s…afraid of him.

Aleksander presses his lips into a tight line.

“Let’s go,” she orders. His gaze drifts down to the keys in her hand. And just like that, as quickly as a light illuminates a face in the dark, this woman in front of him changes back from the girl in the valley to the guard standing between him and the archives. His mission.

And he knows, just as quickly, that he cannot kill this particular guard.

“Alina,” he asks, quietly. And he does not know why he feels guilt over what he is about to do.

She frowns, “Yes?”

“Tell me how you survived.”

“We don’t have time for that right now-“

“Make time.”

“No,” she says bluntly, “Any longer and we’ll both be caught. So _move._ ”

His heart is starting to race as his mind creates scenarios. As he changes his plans quickly, to accommodate this new addition. Because he is not walking away until he has answers. And he is not going into another cell.

Aleksander gives a cold smile, before he claps his hands together. Darkness washes over them both, and he hears her give a startled cry. But before she can arm herself and remember that he has his own powers at his disposal, he brings the manacles around his wrists down hard on the top of her head.

Alina crumples, but he gathers her against his chest before she can hit the floor. He sets her down gently to the floor of the prison. And then Aleksander inhales, closing his eyes in concentration as a Cut formed from shadow slices harmlessly through the chains that bind his hands together.

With his hands freed, he brings one arm under her neck, the other under her knees. And with the cover of darkness, Aleksander does what he wanted to do nearly one hundred years ago:

He takes her with him.

\--

Within an hour, a panic spreads throughout Pravdovret, and then beyond into Kribirsk:

A Grisha has escaped from a prison cell by splitting it in half. And there is no trace of his guard, who many suspect is either dead or, at best, a hostage. When the sunlight breaks the night, officers of the King’s Army inform the guard’s next of kin of her disappearance.

Her husband does not take the news well.

 

 **ii.**  

Four hours after his escape, they are tucked away in one of the old, forgotten cathedrals to some long-dead saint. Alina is still unconscious, and, with no other idea of what else to do, he ties her to the base of a statue, arms pinned at her sides. Guilt fills him, but it is at odds with a sense of vindication: not even moments ago, she was the one who had him locked in a cell. She was the one who went through his pockets.

The Cathedral of Sankt Ilya is nestled in the very heart of Pravdovret. Its heavy, oak doors have been barred for some time. The stained windows have been shuttered close for longer. Rain drips in from holes in the ceiling, puddles growing in the desolate corners away from the central altar.

Aleksander’s fingers drag across the almost clear stone of its table. They leave trails in the dust. The gold, the gems, anything that might have been of value has long since been looted. All that’s left is dirt and broken stone.

And them.

He looks at where she is tied. Alina’s head is rolled back slightly, brown hair plastered to her neck from the rain. A spot near her hairline is already red and egg-shaped.

She’s older, he suddenly realizes. Not significantly so, as what they are will always prevent them from truly _aging,_ but her cheeks are sharper, her jaw more pronounced. There is a confidence to her now that was not there before in the valley. She is not a girl, and he is not a boy. But for some reason, while he could accept those changes within himself, it is nearly impossible to rectify the image of a grumpy, sullen girl stitching skirts and horse blankets with the authoritative guard who held the keys to his prison.

He wonders how much of that girl is left. Because he isn’t sure what remains of the boy who thought he could capture a Firebird.

His footfalls are soft, but still disruptive in the heavy silence of the cathedral. And he stops at the base of the statue, his feet only inches away from her unconscious form. Aleksander looks up the sculpture, into the likeness of Ilya Morozova, and tries to see something familiar there. Like the woman before him, he sees something that calls to him in the stone visage, but nothing that calls him home. They are both pieces of a puzzle, and he has lost sight of the overall picture.

He kneels, and because he is weak, he brushes back the wet hair on her neck. His fingertips skirt over the skin behind her ear, and he feels _it._

Aleksander closes his eyes. His blood sings, his skin becomes electrified. Her power, sluggish in her unconscious state but no doubt present, crawls from the depths of her and meets his own. Inside, he feels that long-forgotten sensation of balance. And his exhale comes as softly as a prayer in this abandoned house of faith.

Alina groans, her lips turn down, but then she is still once again.

He leans forward, watches her eyes struggle to open. And he kisses the space between her brows. That thrum returns again, and despite the anger he has towards her now, he knows it is not a coincidence that they have found each other again when he is on this particular mission.

_You know we’re supposed to be together._

Aleksander returns his gaze to the solemn, forgotten face of Ilya Morozova.

And knows resolve. Because he is now undeniably here to claim two pieces of his future.

The rain falls harder, washing away any hint of a trail between the cathedral and the prison.

When she wakes, she will have no choice but to explain why she is here, in Kribirsk, and not at the bottom of a mountain within a valley she swore she’d never leave.

He retreats from Alina’s still form, sits in a half-broken pew, and waits.

\--

Alina comes to consciousness an hour later. He is in the middle of examining the sepulchrum of the main altar, the large cabinet beneath the flat expanse of the stone is bereft of anything other than a few carvings that are so light he suspects a more detailed, gold impression covered them before this place was desecrated, when she gives out a low hiss of pain. He stills within the altar when he hears her shift, no doubt testing the give of the ropes just as he had tested the slack of his chains.

Slowly, he stands.

The red spot on her forehead has blossomed into a full knot. He sees a slight indentation from the chains on his wrists and there is the slightest bit of regret. Her stare is dazed, unfocused. He can practically see the dizziness hovering over her like a sheet.

“Alina,” he says clearly. Calmly.

That dazed stare focuses on him. “ _You,_ ” she rasps, throat no doubt dry, as she flexes her hands to no effect, “Are severely trying my patience.”

His worn, black travelling clothes are covered in dust. He brushes them off as he moves closer to her. But out of reach. His tongue feels thick in his mouth as he pushes the reluctant question between his teeth, “Are you alright?”

She shoots him an incredulous look, and he wishes he could withdraw the words back, “No. An idiot dropped iron on my head when I was trying to get him out of prison.”

Aleksander frowns, “You were moving me to a different cell.”

Alina’s head darts down. And it takes her a few moments to recollect her thoughts. It occurs to him to check her eyes, to see if the blacks of them are larger than the rest. “You don’t want to kill me.” She finally settles on, her voice tired but resolved.

“No,” he agrees, shifting forward but still not near enough for her to lash out at him. He can almost taste her power in the air, the tense coils of vibrations occupying the space between their chests. And he knows she can feel it too: he recognizes the set in her shoulders, the slightly elevated inhales. But instead of leaning towards him, of holding his hand like she had so many times in the past, she is stiff, and cagey in her constraints.

“I’m not a valuable hostage, not to them,” she presses. “And I have no access to any of the other buildings within Pravdovret except the prison cells.”

Does she still not understand? His fist tightens.

“You’re not here as a hostage.”

Alina looks pointedly at the ropes binding her. And then back to meet his stare. Something about her focuses, and her shoulders move, just a little. Testing, once again. “What do you want.”

He wants her to stop playing this game. He takes a deep breath, and crouches down until they are at eye-level, “Answer my questions.”

She looks at him, to the rope, and back. “...alright. Loosen the rope.”

“Soon.”

His answer must be unexpected to her, because she tilts her head, just a little. Aleksander wants to grab her hand, wants to feel her skin against his own and that familiar, comforting surge of power. He stays where he is.

“How did you survive the fall?”

She shakes her head, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The fist tightens further, “Now’s not the time. How did you survive the fall.”

“You have me mistaken for someone else.”

That rage takes over once again at even the suggestion, and he stands. And paces. “What’s my name, Alina?”

“You never told me.”

Aleksander brings his closed fist on top of the altar. Alina does not react to the sudden motion, her face a cold, if not bemused, mask.

He needs to compose himself. And so he does. His frustration gives his breathing a ragged edge that fills the halls of the empty building, and he is silent until it becomes even. He feels Alina watching him, like snake that might strike. He tries his best to ignore her judgment.

And begins again. “Why are you in Kribirsk.”

This one, she has an answer for. And it is not one he ever would have anticipated, “My sister married a soldier from here. I came with.”

 _Sister._ “You don’t have a sister.” She was _alone._ She was alone until _him._

Alina snorts, and leans her head back against the stone and takes a breath herself. “Some days, I might be tempted to agree with you.”

He doesn’t doubt himself. He knows this is the same person, knows this is the girl who held the sun in her hands with tears in her eyes. But he while he _knows,_ he doesn’t understand. “You don’t have a sister.” He repeats, because he doesn’t know what else to say.

She raises an eyebrow, “You’ll have to take my word. I’m not going to introduce you.”

His heart moves in laggard rolls within his chest, “Is she. Like you.”

“Yes.”

Aleksander has forgotten how to move.

“She’s a Squaller.”

 Air eases back in his lungs. And his mind is racing, confused and uncertain how to proceed.  And before he knows he’s asking, that deep and secret question is escaping from the spaces between his ribs.

“Why didn’t you find me?”

Alina must hear the desperation in his question. Because she almost looks softer, though he’s sure it’s just his mind telling him what he wants to see. Instead of harsh and irritated, her words are hesitant.

“…Because I didn’t know I was supposed to look.”

He returns to sit before her once more, staring at her face for a hint of deception. Instead, there’s only confusion. Confusion and something else that he can’t put into words, but it rests in the creases between her furrowed eyebrows, on the downward curve of her lips. On the way her eyes are slightly widened, as if she’s trying to see something that isn’t there.

He extends his fingers again, and now she tenses but doesn’t flinch. He presses his hand alongside her cheek, as he had done so many times in the past. And their powers reach out to one another with the contact. With that inescapable pull, he sees her eyes widen further, and the awe on her face becomes a mirror for the girl’s in the embroidery shop, when he touched her wrists underneath a blanket.

It’s been so long. His fingers curl under her jaw.

“Do you blame me, Alina?” He asks softly, the very idea hurting him. “Is that what this is about?”

She bites down on her lip, and it is such a familiar, forgotten expression that something within him aches at it. Because it seems out of place, on this woman’s face: she does not let her uncertainty show as plainly. And Alina slowly shakes her head. He is not sure if it is in absolvent or not until she speaks again.

“I’ve never met you before.” And she tries to lean her head away from his touch, but he moves his hand to her shoulder instead. He can’t let go just yet. “…I would have remembered a living amplifier.”

Something drops, cold and hollow, in his stomach. And with it, his hand back to his side. She has never called him that before. She has never known to call him that. Which means that others must have told her.

With the absence of his touch apparently comes clarity for her, “Your secret’s safe with me. I have my own to worry about.” Her words never sound desperate, she never sounds like she’s begging, “Untie me, and let me go back to my family. And if you want…I can still help you.” Her eyes spark with a familiar stubbornness, “But I won’t if you keep me as a hostage.”

“I don’t want your _help,_ ” he finally manages. And he outstretches his palm. Shadows draw to it, spinning once again into an orb and he hears her take in a startled breath. As if she’s never seen his powers before.

“I thought it was…some kind of Squaller technique in the prison,” she whispers, more to herself. Alina doesn’t look away from the shadows. And after a few moments, he looks into her eyes for tears.

There aren’t any. There is shock. There is confusion. But there is no relief, no catharsis. There is nothing like _before._

He folds the shadow back into his hand.

Alina gives a breathy exhale of disbelief, “…What are you?”

Aleksander’s jaw clenches. They sit in silence, in the abandoned cathedral. Her arms tied, his hand still outstretched as if he is expecting something to fill it. Finally, he speaks, and his words are dark, lip curled into a sneer.

“You have to guess.”

And because he is suddenly tired, of her, of how she is not who she is supposed to be, he stands and walks away with his back turned. Again, he feels the weight of her stare trained on him. Evaluating. Judging. But not acknowledging. That dark spike winds its way along his spine again, making his shoulders tense.

“Do not scream,” he finally concedes, realizing that spike is something not unlike loss. “And I’ll release you in the morning.”

Because he can’t keep her. And he won’t continue this strange, cruel game.

Her voice behind him is tentative, “Untie me.”

“In the morning.”

Aleksander retreats to a pew in better condition, and lies there by himself, staring at the ceiling. She does not speak to him, she does not scream. And he is awake longer than what he wishes, trying to understand how he is to share this future he has discovered when his chosen partner is a stranger to him.

Finally, the sound of rain falling through ancient rafters lulls him into sleep.

\--

When he wakes, there is only a pile of rope at the base of Sankt Ilya’s statue, severed clearly in half.

\--

Two days later, she returns to the old cathedral. Though not alone.

 

 


	4. The Second Life: The Heretic (part ii)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: Thank you for the lovely response to the fic! Alina’s husband is a crack pairing, everyone blame Hannah (ignitesthestars) for it. The more Batman-y things are going to be happening next chapter instead of this one 8(
> 
> For KaelsMiscellany/whenwolfsbaneblooms! And also happy birthday to my sun and stars, starforged (I’ll get your bday fic up soon :33)

**The Second Life: The Heretic (prt. ii)**

**iii.**

During the day he searches the skeletons of the altars, the tabernacles, and the other structures of worship. Everything is a carcass for something that once held value. Like the ruins that surround him, the rope still remains in a neat pile by the likeness of Sankt Ilya, even though it is frayed and broken and empty of its former contents.

He doesn’t know how long they’ve been empty. Or if she’ll be coming back. And if she doesn’t, if he’ll try to seek her out. Because she is, undeniably, a source of only cruelty right now. And it would be easier to pretend he never met a Morevna. Never heard lies fall from her lips or sun escape her palms. And maybe, in this case, easiest is what is best. Because he came to Pravdovret before he knew she was here, and he still had something to accomplish whether or not she was present for it.

_It’s for you._

Aleksander shakes his head, and continues his search through the cathedral. He already knows he won’t find anything, but it’s something to help him numb his thoughts as he waits for the sun to sink. Already the patrols are out en masse searching for the fugitive Grisha, and at night it will be an easier process to avoid detection.

The hours pass as the dust is stirred again and again into the air, and finally it gets dark enough for Aleksander to sneak out of the wooden, rotting doors of the cathedral.

\--

Finding the archives takes almost two hours, but the night gives him the advantage. Aleksander moves through the darkened streets of Pravdovret like a ghost, pulling shadows tightly around him and all but disappearing in the face of the patrols that wander throughout the ensconced fortress. The guards are many, and thick, and it takes careful maneuvering to avoid detection.

But he manages.

The low, marble building that houses the Queen’s personal archives is a mile or so from the prison. And it pales in comparison to the grandiose, pillared palaces that make up the museums. And unlike the museums, the archives is not as heavily guarded. Even less so, now that there is a fugitive Grisha on the loose and the guards’ attention is otherwise focused.

Because unlike the museums, the archives do not hold gold, or gems, or priceless artwork. It only holds paper.

When Aleksander finally arrives on the steps of the building, he stays to the shadows and waits. After another two hours, he is confident enough that he has an accurate read on the number of guards in close proximity: only two, posted at the door.

He doesn’t hesitate, when he draws his arm down in two, twin diagonal motions.

There is a quick slice of shadow, and the guards are no longer standing.

Casting a furtive glance around the steps, Aleksander moves quickly into the building, and does not look at the faces of the crumpled bodies at his feet.

\--

It takes another hour, but in the bowels of the archives, deep in the forgotten shelves with carelessly arranged documents, he finds it. Right where it is supposed to be.

The iron chest is big, and heavy, and covered in a solid inch of dust. When Aleksander crouches before it, he sees that the keyhole has long been soldered shut. Without wasting time, he pulls it out from its resting place between two bookshelves, and with a surge of strength he places it on a nearby wheeled platform.

Wrapping both himself and the chest in shadow, Aleskander leaves as quickly and quietly as he arrived, adding the bodies of the guard to the platform when he passes them.

\--

It takes another hour to dispose of the bodies near the nobles’ homes. And two more to wheel the chest stealthily through the streets of Pravdovret without detection. Once he finally makes it back to the forgotten cathedral of Sankt Ilya, he stores the chest in the sepulchrum of the main altar, and climbs to the rotting second floor.

And as the sunlight begins to rise, it is on the second floor that Aleksander closes his eyes and surrenders to sleep without another thought but the elation of finally recovering what is rightfully his.

\--

The next morning, he is woken by the combination of sun sliding between the cracks of the cathedral’s roof and the sound of voices.

“I can’t believe this-“

Aleksander frowns, blinking sleep from his eyes and pulling himself into a sitting position as quietly as possible.

“-better off for it-“

He crouches, walking slowly along the half-rotted floor of the second level of the cathedral, eyes scanning underneath him for the source of the voice. He’s ready to Cut if necessary, if the woman who is not the girl betrayed him to the authorities.

“Shut up for twenty seconds,” comes a hushed whisper, and this is one that Aleksander knows well. He pauses, and looks down.

He sees the top of Alina’s head as she walks down the destroyed aisles, hands ghosting over the ends of the pews. She is not dressed in her prison guard uniform, but instead in a simple dark blue dress with a cloak that is a shade or two darker buttoned over it.  He hates how his heart beats a little faster. He forces himself to look away, to see to her companion.

It’s a woman. Perhaps a few years older, and she is dressed head to toe in much finer clothes. White fur and rose-colored silk make up her dress and accompanying hat and, unlike Alina, she does not touch anything as they walk. Instead her hands are folded into a white fur muff. Her pale, pointed boots seem to hover over the ground for all the dirt that is apparent on them. Her small nose is pointed up in disdain, wide and blue eyes looking at everything with silent judgment. Grime cowers away from her.

Aleksander frowns. A noblewoman.

The noblewoman walks over to the base of Sankt Ilya, and toes at the destroyed ropes as though they are dead snakes, “And let me guess, _tupaya,_ this was for your own comfort?” Her painted red lips twist into a frown as she looks up into Sankt Ilya’s face, “Because the hospitality shown to you was clearly unmatched.”

Alina says nothing to the noblewoman, her hands and feet stopping in line with the final set of pews. She frowns, head tilting to look at the altar. She takes a step closer to it, almost directly below where Aleksander now rests. Almost to the chest tucked underneath it. His shoulders tense.

“He’s still here,” Alina mutters, fingers stretching out and tracing over the place where his hands had trailed not even a few hours ago.

“He deserves it,” grumbles the noblewoman under her breath, casting a sneer into Ilya’s face. “I’m tired of this place already. Let’s get it over with. You stay here, I’ll search the…prayer room or whatever they call it.”

Alina keeps staring at the handprints in the dust, “Alright. Be ready.”

The noblewoman snorts, and dismisses Alina with the wave of her finely manicured hand before she disappears down a darkened hallway, “I wasn’t the one who was kidnapped.”

Alina’s only response is to shake her head. And Aleksander listens to the sound of the noblewoman’s heeled boots snap against the stone until they dim into nothing.

Alina steps forward again, standing to the side of the altar. She frowns, as though listening for something. His jaw tightens, his weight shifts between his feet.

Alina’s head snaps up. There is still a knot near her hairline, though it is sickly yellow and dark purple now.

He inhales. And Aleksander stares at her as if he has all the time in the world to do so.

She doesn’t smile, not quite, but her voice is careful instead of threatening when she speaks next:

“Hello.”

He straightens cautiously into a stand. “Hello.”

Her lips press together in contemplation, before she speaks again, “I’m not here to arrest you.”

“I wouldn’t let you, if you were.”

She raises an eyebrow at that, before taking a step away. She rests her back against the altar in a manner that is so casual he immediately knows that it is a ruse of some kind. His shoulders uncoil with relief when she stops short of the cupboard underneath it, “…I’m guessing there’s a reason you’re not halfway to Shu Han by now.”

Aleksander stares at her mouth, his gaze trailing down to the hints of her collar bone that peak out above the neckline of her dress. His attention must make her uncomfortable, because it doesn’t take long for her arms to fold over her chest and a poisonous glare to be sent upwards.

He almost smiles, despite himself, “Is there a reason you’re not arresting me?”

She shifts, folding one of her booted legs over the other. “Maybe.”

Aleksander doesn’t want to hope, but it sneaks in, unwanted and obtrusive, “…Do you know my name now?”

Alina stares at him. Through him.  
And shakes her head.

That old anger is back, and he only has himself to blame this time. His own, strange desire to create vulnerabilities for this woman, “Then why are you here.”

She clears her throat, shifting again. Her eyes take in the dilapidated pews, the crumbling pillars. The frayed rope by the neglected statue. She sighs, rubbing the back of her neck, “I don’t know,” She looks into his eyes once again, “But I am.”

It’s quiet. He tenses on the edge of his floor, where the railing has given way long ago. All that is separating him from her is a short drop. He wants to press his hand over her heart. He wants to feel her pulse. He wants to remember what it was like to bury his fingers into her hair as he kisses her. He wants her to draw shapes of sunlight in the sky for him to chase after.

He doesn’t step down, “What do you want.”

“To talk,” Alina says slowly, “Maybe to help you.”

There she goes again. Offering what he doesn’t need.  “Why.”

Her mouth tilts up into a grin, though it doesn’t reach her eyes, “I have a weakness for lost causes.”

Aleksander frowns, and considers her for a moment. Until the snap of heels on stone breaks his concentration.

“ _Rats,_ Alina. Actual _rats._ On a _bookshelf._ I’ve officially lost my patience with this idiotic scavenger hunt of yours-“

Neither of them look away from each other. He hears the noblewoman’s footfalls come closer and faster, until she is directly beside Alina with her lips pursed and eyebrows furrowed.

“So,” the noblewoman asks bluntly, “Are we killing him?”

Aleksander reluctantly slides his gaze away from Alina to the noblewoman. He stays silent, waiting to hear Alina’s answer.

It’s a shrug.

The noblewoman snorts, folding her hands deeper into her muff, but her body remains tense, “You would be the maniac who kidnapped my _sestrenka,_ then.” It’s not said in a friendly manner. Her cold blue eyes trail over every inch of him in appraisal, though he’s not sure what sort of appraisal it is.

Aleksander frowns. _Sestrenka…_?

Alina’s words are quiet, “This is the dark one I told you about.”

The woman next to her rolls her eyes, “The dark one? _Please._ He’s hardly a darkling.” Her stare narrows, “Do you know who I am, little darkling?”

He doesn’t see why he should. And his frown deepens at the nickname.

The noblewoman stands straighter, “My name is Zoya.”

“My sister,” Alina offers with a grunt.

Her red upper lip twitches, “And _I_ am the sister whoknows how to get blood out of silk,” she smiles with even, white teeth, “I learned for a reason.”

He wonders if he’s going to have to kill her, this noblewoman. And how badly Alina would react if he did. He looks between them, and does not see much in terms of resemblance.

“…the Squaller,” he finally mutters, recalling their conversation the night before.

She sniffs, “ _The_ Squaller, yes. And you’d better be worth me not repaying you for the ugliness on Alina’s thick head.”

He feels Alina’s stare on him, careful and heavy. Aleksander doesn’t apologize for hitting her, because she has not apologized for trying to leave him in chains. He walks slightly down the hall above them, and both women do not tear their gaze away. “What do you want.” He finally asks again.

The arrogant woman named Zoya turns to Alina, and gives her a quiet, questioning look. He sees the smallest dip to Alina’s chin, and Zoya gives a glare of muted disbelief, before she sighs and turns to look up at him.

One of her hands slips out of the muff in order to rest haughtily on her hip. Her eyes take in every inch of him, dissecting, “Apparently I want to talk to you about a little project of mine.”

He frowns. What could this woman possibly have to say of interest?

Zoya gives Alina another displeased look. But Alina stays silent. And Zoya lets out a suffering breath before she continues.

“You _are_ a Grisha, aren’t you?”

Aleksander’s jaw clenches. “Yes.”

The older woman still seems displeased, but something about her unravels a little, “And are you going to be in Kribirsk for long?”

Aleksander turns to Alina before he can stop himself. She is staring at the toes of her dirty boots and nowhere else. He keeps looking at her, and therefore misses the speculative, disdainful look that crosses Zoya’s face when he replies, “Yes.”

Zoya puts her exposed hand back into the muff, “Then we are willing to help you hide in the city. For a price.”

His attention shifts reluctantly back to the older woman, “What makes you think I need help hiding?”

Zoya makes a grand sweeping motion with her enfolded hands, “You don’t actually expect me to believe this is your first choice.”

It _is_ his first choice. But his eyes drift back to Alina once more, “…What’s the price.”

Her smile is, once again, all pristine teeth, “We want to build a new country.”

\--

The sisters are both Grisha, and tired of the way things are in Kribirsk. Tired of seeing otherwise innocent Grisha being put into jail and executed. Tired of hiding who they are and what they can do.

“We’re a small operation at the moment,” Alina says, as they later sit together on the first floor of the cathedral. She is on the opposite side of Zoya, hesitant but not exactly afraid as he listens to them, “There’s about sixteen of us now,” she bites down on her lip. He turns to stare at the rafters, “We’re organized, but there’s not much we can do. Most of them don’t want to fight. So we do what we can, in terms of sabotage. Working at the prison, I can sometimes help Grisha escape,” he feels her glare on him, but he refuses to acknowledge it, “When they cooperate, that is.”

Zoya scoffs, looking at her nails, “Why _were_ you in prison, by the way?”

Because that’s where he wanted to be. “A patrol found me in the woods.”

“Doing what?”

“Nothing.”

“Mhm,” Zoya says, sneering at her pristine fingers that curl slightly into a fist, “And taking hostages? That’s run of the mill for you, too?”

“Zoya,” Alina mutters.

She rolls her thin shoulders, “I’m fine with ruthlessness. What concerns me are liars,” she looks at him from the side of her eye, “Liars are liabilities. Are you a liar, darkling?”

Aleksander looks past the dark-haired interrogator. To the brown-eyed, tired woman who has folded her hands over her chest again, “I’m what I need to be.”

“How pragmatic of you.”

Alina runs a hand through her hair in agitation, “He can use the Cut, Zoya.”

Aleksander’s spine goes rigid at her confession. And Zoya is looking at him like he’s not a spot of mud on her skirts for the first time.

“ _Him_?”

“Yes,” Alina looks past her sister, straight at him, “You can, can’t you?”

Aleksander’s fingers bunch into the fabric of his trousers, and he keeps his tone level, “So can you.”

Alina gives a slow nod, “Yes.”

He almost feels…proud.

“With. Shadow,” Zoya mumbles, sending Alina a furtive look.

Good. The significance is not lost on her.

Alina stands suddenly, and both he and Zoya turn to watch her pace. She stops directly in front of where he sits, and he keeps his stare level with hers even though she looks down on him.

“We want to teach Grisha to defend themselves. To learn how to use their powers without exposure, and go beyond just being a disorganized support network,” her face is drawn, serious and he sees the underlying steel of Alina Morevna making itself known, “There aren’t many who can use the Cut. And even less that are amplifiers. You’d be useful.”

Aleksander feels what might be excitement for the first time in decades. Was this not his own dream, being laid before him? He remembers being a boy, being hunted, and how he wanted to be something valued and treasured. To be known for his gifts. Celebrated for them. It was why he was here, to make his vision of Ravka become a reality. What Alina and this woman were saying wasn’t his plan, but it did not contradict his own. It might even make his mission easier. They no doubt had resources and a network that was outside of his own.

And…

 Aleksander stands, and he holds out his hand to her. Alina leans back slightly.

“What?”

He almost smiles, but doesn’t, “Grab my hand.”

Zoya snorts.

Alina sends her sister a quick, undecipherable look, before she nods, and slowly slides her fingers in between his own.

It comes as a jolt, once again. A tether that calls out to her power, and intertwines it with his own. He’s with her, from the slow beat of his heart to the rushing of blood in her ears, and he knows that this is what will help him gain control of Ravka. Together, this strange connection is what can bring a dream into reality.

He sees sun glowing in the space between their palms, flooding out and engulfing the cracks of their fingers, rendering pale skin a reddish pink. He’s missed the color.

“Yes, you’re both very special,” Zoya says caustically from her seat, though he detects a hint of unease to her words, and one of her delicate knees rests over the other, “Now are you going to do anything about it?”

Shadows form ribbons in the gaps of their fingers, chasing away the light almost playfully. Alina only watches the movement—she doesn’t chase them with her own.

“Yes,” he whispers, running his thumb over the back of Alina’s hand. She startles, body going tense as she sends him a warning look. He ignores it. “I’ll help you change Ravka.”

\--

They promise to return that night. He waits until they are gone, and then he returns to the heavy, iron chest underneath the altar. Aleksander presses his fingers against the keyhole, shut and soldered.

This, he decides, is to be only his secret. And it is a secret that is too heavy to move, to wherever it is that they’re going, so instead he covers it with an old sheet, taken from an older altar deep within the cathedral, and vows to return when it’s time.

 

**iv.**

He is almost about to drift off into sleep when he hears a creak of the door. Aleksander sits up from the pew cautiously, pulling his cloak tighter around him. He gathers shadows to his hand, but stops them when he sees a lantern.

He is pleasantly surprised that Alina came alone. She stands, free hand tucked into the pocket of her guard’s coat, and looks hesitant to be there. It irritates him. Because he already knows he is expecting too much from her.

“Still here,” she observes when she catches sight of him. He can’t tell if that’s a positive statement or a regret. She brings the lantern up, closer to her face.

“Do you want me to come with you,” he asks, moving to her. He is taller than her, but somehow she manages to meet his gaze straight-on without tilting up her head.

She raises an eyebrow, “Are you going to hit me in the head or tie me up again?”

“No.”

Alina sighs, and starts to walk towards the cathedral’s doors, “That was a good place for an apology, for the record.”

He moves behind her, his footfalls a perfect echo for her own, “Do you want one?”

She looks back at him over her shoulder, “Would it be sincere?”

“Does it matter?”

Alina shakes her head, pulling up the hood of her cloak. She motions for him to do the same, and he follows. The wooden door swings open, “You’re a frustrating person.”

His smile is tight, “So I’ve been told.”

His former guard looks out into the darkened streets of Pravdovret, and her shoulders sag a little before she turns to completely face him, “We’re going to be leaving through the wall. Can I trust you?”

Aleksander frowns. “Out of Pravdovret?”

Her brown eyes are studying him, and once again he gets the feeling she’s trying to see something that isn’t there, “Is that a problem?”

His mind goes to the chest underneath the altar. His eyes look at the set of keys at Alina’s hip, glinting bronze in the face of lantern light. He wonders what this patience will cost him, if it’s better to go back to the cathedral, and continue his work at night. Or to leave with Alina now, and wait until the guards no longer search for him.

It takes him a moment, but he decides, “No.”

Alina hesitates, but nods. “You are going to be my cousin.”

Aleksander stills, “What.”

“If the guards ask. You are my cousin.”

“And why would your cousin be in Pravdovret?”

He sees the hint of a smirk on her face, “Studying paintings.”

Aleksander cannot fight the twitch in his lip, “Paintings.”

“Yes. At the Queen’s gallery,” Alina snorts, and takes the first step across the threshold of the cathedral, and out onto the dark roads, “I doubt the guard will ask anything else.”

Her reasoning surprises him, “Is that so?”

The streets are quiet. A few streetlamps are lit in the corners of the main roads, but they are sparse and small, making it seem as though every light is a great distance away. The buildings have a few windows glowing, but other than that there seems to be no one in Pravdovret aside from the two of them. He walks faster, so that he is beside Alina instead of behind her. She doesn’t give any indication that he’s changed his pace—hers remains slow and steady.

Alina keeps her face trained forward, “Why would I be escorting my own kidnapper?”

The words slip out before he can dam them, “Is that all I am to you now?”

Her only reaction is tightening her grip on the lantern, her words carefully chosen, “What else were you expecting to be?”

Aleksander hears his teeth grind against each other, “You know I’m not just a Grisha.”

“Neither am I.”

He nods, “We’re the same.”

Alina’s feet come to a halt. His stop next to them. She pivots, facing him.

“You don’t know me,” her eyes reflect like her keys in the candlelight, “Stop acting like you do.”

“I know you better than anyone,” he whispers, and his fingers move gingerly over her hair, where her bruises are.

She grabs his wrist before he can touch her, “ _Stop._ ”

They are at a standstill for a few moments, and she begrudgingly releases his arm. The silence between them is tense, and he keeps his hands at his side.

“Why did you come alone.”

Alina watches him, cagey, before she starts walking again, “Because Zoya was needed at home,” a careful look, “And she doesn’t like you.”

“She’s not alone.”

He watches as she forces a grin onto her face, “You don’t make the best first impression.”

It’s not their first. And Aleksander is starting to wonder the depths of her self-delusion in relation to this game she’s begun. And his own. They keep walking in silence, the closer they get to the wall that separates Pravdovret from Kribirsk, the more people start to flood the streets. No one gives them a second glance, aside from fellow guards who nod familiarly at Alina but do not strike up a conversation.

Aleksander keeps track of every building, every window. Which ones are lit, which ones are dark. They pass museums, noble estates, and court houses. They even pass the aforementioned Queen’s art gallery, and he looks at the gold-leafed building in bemusement.

“When we get to the wall,” Alina starts, creating a ripple in the stillness of the night just as effectively as her lantern, “Don’t speak. To the guard, to anyone. I’ll handle it.”

It doesn’t occur to him until now to ask, “Where are we going.”

She visibly hesitates before answering, “Kribirsk. Somewhere safe.”

“And where is it safe in Kribirsk?”

Alina gives a short exhale, “It’s safe. Now quiet, we’re close.”

They are. The guard, a large man with a red beard, makes small talk with Alina and doesn’t spare him a second glance. The blatant dismissal irritates him, until he remembers that it’s to his advantage. But it’s nearly insulting, how easy it is to get back to the other side of the wall. Alina shows the bearded man some papers that are clearly not necessary, he smiles and tells her good night, and it’s only then does his attention turns back to him.

“Enjoy your art studies, yeah?”

He stares.

The bearded man gives a nervous laugh, “Quiet man, your cousin.”

Alina smiles, it’s the first time he’s seen the expression on her face and it is one that is well-rehearsed, “He’s always tired after his work.”

The bearded man nods, “Understand that. My nephew’s off studying law in Os Alta. Whenever he comes home, you see the light’s been dimmed out of his eyes-“ the bearded man catches himself, “-not that you look dim, Mr…Sorry I didn’t catch your name?”

“Piotr.” He says quietly, attention fixated on Alina, waiting for a reaction.

There isn’t one. Her smile doesn’t even fade.

“Right. Piotr. Well, you two walk safe, and Morevna-“ Alina pauses, turns back to the man, “I’m, uh. Glad you got an escort home. We were all worried.”

Alina dips her head, “Have a good night, Mikhael.”

“You too, Morevna.”

They walk out of Pravdovret, and into Kribirsk. And it is when they are crossing that invisible line which separates nobility from serf that Alina talks again.

“You don’t look like a Piotr,” is all she offers, mouth tilted into a grin.

“I’m not,” he bites out, and the pair walk in silence for the next hour.

\--

She leads him to a townhouse. It’s an old building, with old brick and old stone, but it’s not a shack. And he is reasonably sure it is not a prison cell. It stands alone, one of the few homes to do so on the crowded streets of Kribirsk. And while it doesn’t look inviting, it at least looks comfortable.

“What is this.”

Alina sighs, and lowers the lantern to the ground once they reach the threshold. She starts to fiddle with the keys at her belt. He tries to pay attention to which ones she is grabbing, “Where you’ll be staying.”

“Until when.”

She finds a heavy, brass key and places it in the door, “Until you decide to disappear, I imagine.”

He looks at the safehouse, memorizes its appearance. Alina hesitates, turning to face him once more. And they are close, close enough that it is only the width of the lantern between them. Aleksander watches as she wrestles with indecision.

“What is it?” He prompts, leaning forward slightly.

Alina frowns, “Just.”

“Yes?”

The key twists in the lock. “Keep your distance from Ivan. For another day or two.”

She picks up the lantern, and enters through the door. He frowns. _Ivan_? But follows her in.

The house is humble, but clean. Old, beaten furniture rests in the center of the room: an oak table, with matching chairs. Two armchairs in front of the fire. And on top of the mantle, an eclectic arrangement of pottery is on full display.

Aleksander sends Alina a curious look, but she is preoccupied with taking off her boots. Without waiting for an invitation, he takes a step closer to examine them. Above the fire, proudly exhibited, there is a lopsided vase, with crooked flowers etched into its surface. Next, a pair of mugs, identical except for the fact that one has a handle and one has a chunk of ceramic where a handle should be. And finally, he counts seven ashtrays, all in varying sizes and colors. All with slight lumps to their brims.

“It’s a hobby,” Alina mutters behind him, and Aleksander turns to see her cheeks flushed red. He swallows slowly. The expression makes her seem younger. Softer. More familiar.

And realization hits, “…This is your home.”

She nods. And then frowns as something occurs to her for the first time, “Take your boots off. I spent two hours washing the floor yesterday.”

Aleksander instead watches as Alina pulls off her heavy guard’s coat, stares as her fingers undo each button. Tendrils of her hair have fallen from their bun, resting on her neck, the sides of her face. Her lantern rests on the old table, casting a warm glow on her profile. She shrugs the coat off, and he sees that underneath she is wearing a simple blouse, bunched at the elbows. After a few more moments, she must feel his stare because she tilts her head in confusion.

“Did you forget how boots work?”

He looks back to the mutilated pottery. To the two, strange mugs. His hands flex.

And there is the sound of heavy footfalls, coming down from a nearby stairway.

Alina sends him a warning look that Aleksander cannot interpret, and before he can ask, a tall figure stands in the doorway that connects this room to the rest of the house.

“Alina?” The voice is thick with sleep, but deep. Aleksander tears his gaze away from the pottery over the fireplace, and sees an unfamiliar man standing next to Alina. The man is tall, solidly built, and his brown hair is in a disheveled mess. He is wearing sleeping clothes.

“Ivan,” she says with a tired smile that is more genuine than the one she gave the bearded guard earlier. Aleksander stands straighter as he watches the intruder move towards her.

“You’re late,” this Ivan says in a clipped tone.

The tired smile twists into a lopsided grin as Alina sits in a chair at the table, staring intently at Aleksander, “Something came up.”

Ivan turns his head, and notices that he is not the only man in the room for the first time. His eyes are a darker brown than Alina’s, his features square. A brother maybe. Or more likely a cousin.

“Who’s this,” the newcomer demands.

Alina closes her eyes, takes a breath, and opens them, “He’s…one of us.”

Aleksander doesn’t know what to make of this man before him, but his arm muscles tense with anticipation. The man named Ivan notices, because his fingers form fists at his side, and he takes a step closer to Alina. For some reason that sends that familiar dark spike down Aleksander’s spine.

“He’s not staying here,” Ivan finally decides.

“Yes, he is,” Alina’s tone is exasperated, anticipating a disagreement already.

“Not with that other one still running around Pravdovret,” the dark-haired man presses.

Aleksander’s eyes narrow, his curiosity piqued despite himself, “What other one?”

Ivan sneers, moving away from Alina and closer to him, “Haven’t you heard? There’s a fugitive,” a pointed stare is given to the occupant of the table, “And guards are out everywhere, looking for Grisha.”

Alina sighs, “It’s not an issue-“

“We’re not taking Zoya’s charity case this time,” Ivan turns away from him to face her, “You were almost killed-“

“I wouldn’t have hurt her,” Aleksander says as calmly as he is able, the words dripping as coldly as ice from his tongue.

Ivan goes still. Alina abruptly stands and glares at Aleksander as if he has just made a confession.

“Ivan-“ she warns, steel in her voice.

But the brunet man doesn’t listen to her, because in the span of a second, he pivots and swings his fist straight into Aleksander’s jaw.

Pain is secondary to shock as Aleksander’s head snaps back. He hears an audible crack as the man’s knuckles connect. He staggers back, colliding with the row of pottery behind him. He hears something shatter against the floor, before another fist catches him in the stomach.

“Ivan!”

Aleksander’s arm swings down in a diagonal motion-

The room explodes in a burst of white, blinding light. Aleksander slams his eyes shut.

“ _Enough,_ ” Alina hisses, but the light doesn’t recede.

“He hit you-!” He hears Ivan from nearby, but it’s hard to orient himself with the pounding headache the brightness causes behind his eyes.

“And you broke my favorite ashtray. We’ll talk about both in the morning.”

“You’re not letting him stay here.”

“It’s my decision.”

“Alina, you can’t-“

“I’ll keep this room lit until you agree to lower your arms. Do you want the neighbors wondering why it’s as bright as the daylight inside our house, in the middle of the night?”

“Do you know how it felt?! To have members of the _Queen’s guard_ at the door.”

Alina’s voice is low, and Aleksander can barely make it out, “I know. And I’m sorry. But for right now, this is how it has to be. We need him.”

“ _We._ ”

“We.”

“…Why.”

“We’ll talk. In the morning.”

“And I’m just supposed to trust him in the meantime. In my home.”

“No, you’re supposed to trust me. And it’s our home.”

Silence stretches for a few moments, and Aleksander unfolds his fingers, ready to bring them together in a harsh clap, when the light dissolves.

When the brightness leaves, there is only Alina standing in the middle of her room. Somewhere within the house, a door slams shut. She sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“Are you alright,” she asks half-heartedly.

Aleksander doesn’t answer. For the first time she seems completely unknown to him. “How long have you been able to do that.”

Alina drops her hand, “Do what.”

“Blind.”

“Long enough,” she moves towards him, but stops. “Piotr,” she says quietly.

He doesn’t understand the look on her face, or the cold anger suddenly filling him at both the use of _that_ name and the aching pain in his jaw and stomach, “What.”

“…Will you take your boots off. I already have to sweep up the ashtray.”

\--

After his boots are off, and her ashtray is swept, she gives him a room in her basement. The door at the top of the stairwell is shut behind her without another word said between them.

Aleksander sits in the dark, mind drifting between the iron chest underneath the altar, the man with his heavy fist, and how the last time Alina had invited him to stay at her home, he was able to do so in her bed.

Sleep does not come as easily as it might have in the past.

**v.**

The next morning, it is not Alina who comes to see him, but Ivan. The man carries a tray in between his hands, tightly clenched.

Aleksander stares coldly at him from his position at the desk. Alina has a few books of poetry, hidden in corners of the basement, and he has helped himself to them.

Ivan’s hair is no longer disheveled, and instead of sleepwear, he has on a white linen kosovorotka shirt and dark trousers. His throat is coated in light brown stubble, his eyes have dark circles under them, and his jaw is visibly working as his teeth grind together.

He puts the tray down on the desk with only a little less force than a slam. Aleksander glances at it: a pitcher of water, a crudely made ceramic cup, and a bowl of porridge with a thick slice of buttered bread. Hardly a feast, but also hardly an impolite offering.

“Give me your face,” Ivan practically growls, rolling up his long sleeves. Aleksander notices that the collar and hems of his shirt have red embroidery along them, as does the red sash tied around his waist, and frowns.

“Where’s Alina.”

Ivan glares at him, “Work.”

Aleksander returns the expression evenly. Ivan breaks away first, shifting his weight and scowling at the floor, “Hurry up. I haven’t got all day.”

“For what.”

“Your face.”

He stares at the man, fingers clenching, but his tone is calm. Assured. “You won’t get another punch.”

Ivan’s upper lip curls, just a little, and Aleksander sees the muscles of his forearm tense, “…you are lucky you are Alina’s guest, and not mine.”

“She’s only returning my attentive hospitality.”

Aleksander waits for Ivan to lash out, to give him an excuse to kill him. He clearly wants to. But whatever command Alina has over this man is a strong one, because he only snatches Alina’s poetry books before he retreats back up the stairs.

\--

His next guest comes down an hour or two later, and is only slightly more pleasant.

Zoya looks around the humble basement with a look that could only be labeled satisfaction. Once again, she is dressed far higher than her surroundings: a pale blue silk dress and fox fur draped over her shoulders, small pearls glisten in her ears and her hair is ornately fashioned up, in the style of married women. Everything is spotless.

“My _sestrenka_ didn’t feel like giving you the main floor?” she chides, blue eyes immediately focusing on the bruise that must be forming on his jaw.

His patience for this woman is wearing thinner by the minute, “Where is Alina.”

Zoya rolls her eyes, “Work. All the guards are working double shifts because of you, you know.”

Aleksander isn’t sure what reaction she expects from him at the news, but it’s clear he has disappointed her because she shrugs her wrap tighter around her.

“Ivan was supposed to fix your face,” she says crossly, thin, fine fingers going towards his chin, but then retreating, as if she realized the motion would require touching him at the last moment.

“He did.”

Zoya snorts with a dark amusement, “I might actually agree with you, darkling.” She tilts her head, all her perfectly pinned curls stay in place, “But Ivan’s a Corporalki. He was supposed to get rid of mess.”

Aleksander’s mind flashes to the ugly knot on Alina’s face, “…he didn’t heal Alina.”

Her eyes narrow dangerously, and Zoya instantly takes a step away from him, “Yes, well. She needed something to prove she was a hostage and not in collusion,” her tone drips venom, “The penalty for aiding a Grisha in Ravka is death by hanging, you know.”

He knows.

Zoya clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth, turning her attention back to his jaw, “Can’t be helped now. I suppose we’ll just have to make a story of it.”

She turns on her heel, and starts striding towards the stairs. She stops, and looks over her shoulder in annoyance when she realizes he isn’t following.

“Would you like me to roll out a carpet?”

Aleksander scowls, but stands, “Where are we going.”

Zoya shrugs the fox fur up closer to her chin, “A meeting.”

“With who.”

Her painted lips, pink today, press together, “I’m beginning to wonder if holding hands with my _seshtrenka_ makes you incapable of retaining information.”

His face must convey his anger, because she once again shrugs up her fox fur and sighs.

“We’re meeting Grisha. And we’re going to be past the fashionably late mark if you continue to move as quickly as a lead weight in the river.”

Quietly, he weighs the value of meeting other like-minded Grisha versus the satisfaction he would have at ignoring the woman. He scowls, before following her up the stairs and ignoring her smug grin.

 _She’s temporary._ He reminds himself, as they walk through the sitting room he was in last night, and out the door. Ivan is nowhere to be seen. _They’re all temporary._

He thinks of light brown eyes.

_Besides one._

\--

Unlike Alina, when Zoya walks people make it a point to strike up a conversation with her on the street. For someone who was so concerned with timeliness, she has no reservations about upholding small talk with everyone from bakers to soldiers.

When people ask about her companion, she is only slightly less dismissive than Alina.

“Oh, this is my dear cousin from Os Alta. He’s here to study art in the Queen’s gallery.”

Aleksander is not surprised that most of the people on the streets vying for her attention are men. And that they all visibly deflate when he becomes the painting cousin from Os Alta instead of the mysterious man escorting her. And he is not surprised that none of the men bother to ask his name.

In short, it takes nearly an hour to walk down a few streets. And he is ready to abandon this woman and retreat back to the cathedral in Pravdovret, when they finally stop in front of an old, seemingly abandoned theatre.

Zoya takes out a heavy, iron key from within her furs, and twists it on the heavy lock of the gate. She pauses, and when she turns to him, he is surprised by the ferocity in her gaze. Gone is the opulent socialite who stopped to flirt with fish boys and caterers. Instead there is something like a bear.

“I would kill for any of them,” she says simply. Her chin juts up, just a little, “And I have killed for my sister.”

This time, he actually does not doubt her bravado. He knows the face of a killer well, and Zoya wears it plainly underneath the pearl-studded hair and painted lips.

Because he would kill for Grisha too. And he, also, has killed for her sister.

Aleksander nods.

Zoya sniffs, and without another word she opens the gate, and the theatre door beyond it.

\--

Aside from him and Zoya, there are only seven others in the empty theatre hall. And Aleksander pays careful attention as they introduce themselves.

There are the siblings, Adrik and Nadia. Squallers. Adrik seems too young despite his twenty years, and Nadia seems to not even be present, for all that she hides behind the personalities of both Zoya and her other friend, an Inferninamed Marie, who speaks frequently but says little.

Next to Marie, there is Sergei: who is loud and arrogant. And beside him, Fedyor. Who is withdrawn and melancholy. Both Corporalki.

And finally, there are Stigg, Harshaw, and Klim, the last two another set of siblings. All Inferni. Harshaw makes his introduction by watching one of the old curtains become enwrapped with flame.

He spends the next few hours watching them practice. And they are exactly what he expects. Weak. Untrained. Unaware of the extents of their own powers. Of the group, he can tell almost instantly that the ones who hold any promise are Fedyor, Harshaw, Marie, and, surprisingly Zoya, who manipulates the wind without a single pearl falling from her hair.

It’s not enough to make a difference.

But, Aleksander thinks, as he watches Sergei outstretch his hand and cause Adrik to fall with a short cry of pain, it could be.

He could make it be one.

\--

The first week with them passes the same as the first day: every morning, Ivan brings him breakfast and takes back the poetry books Aleksander finds. Every afternoon, Zoya takes him to the theatre. And into the night, Aleksander sits and trains with the Grisha.

It isn’t arrogance when he says they improve under his guidance. Fedyor begins to transition from Healer to Heartrender, Harshaw manages some restraint and focus. Nadia steps slightly out of the shadows of the older women.

He’s not sure if this counts as wasting or biding his time, but time has always been his to do what he wishes with it.

\--

Halfway into the second week, the group at the theatre is finally joined by two more Grisha: a Corporalki and a Sun Summoner.

 

**vi.**

He is in the middle of sparring with Stigg, when he feels a stare pinned between his shoulder blades. It stays there throughout the match, and when Aleksander decides he is tired of wondering who it belongs to, he brings a swift kick to Stigg’s neck and ends the match with the Inferni gasping on the floor.

When he turns, he sees Alina standing across the theatre space. She looks tired, but the bruise on her head is faded to almost nothing, and she is nearly smiling as she takes in whatever Zoya is saying beside her.

Next to her is Ivan. Who is not smiling, or frowning. His arms are folded over his chest and he is staring just as intently.

Aleksander makes his way to her, pulling on his own kosovorotka shirt that had been discarded during the match.

“Darkling,” Zoya greets flippantly, today wrapped in what might possibly be mink, “Whatever did Stigg do to you.”

He ignores her, focusing only on Alina, “Where have you been.”

She raises an eyebrow, “Work,” the hint of a smile plays on her features, “They are very concerned about a renegade Grisha, terrorizing the streets of Kribirsk.” The smile fades away, “They found two guards killed near the Winter Palace a few days ago.”

Aleksander steps closer, “I’m sure it was earned.”

“You’re drawing the wrong kind of attention, darkling,” Ivan grunts, and irritation filters through him at this man picking up Zoya’s condescending nickname.

“Maybe not,” Aleksander only watches Alina’s face for a reaction, the rest of the theatre falling away to backdrop, “Aren’t you tired of hiding?”

She goes visibly still at the question. And a soft, small smile forms on his lips at her hesitance. She has changed, but maybe in this way it is for the better.

“Yes,” she allows, “I am. But I imagine I’d grow more tired of being shot at or watching my friends hang.”

“We can change how things are.”

Alina frowns, “How?”

Aleksander thinks of the iron chest, hidden in the heart of Pravdovret, “I’ll have a way.”

“Care to share with the rest of us?” Ivan mutters darkly, and Aleksander turns to him as if noticing his presence for the first time.

Ivan’s arms are crossed still, his jaw in its perpetual clench. And he is looking at Aleksander as if he is something he must tolerate, like the itch of healing skin.

Aleksander moves first, “What are you.”

Ivan twitches at the question, “I’m Corporalki.”

“Heartrender or Healer.”

The bigger man watches him carefully, “Healer.”

Aleksander evaluates him, and wonders just how much authority he holds, “Spar with Fedyor.”

Tension swells in between the four of them. Surprisingly, it is Zoya who breaks it.

“The darkling knows how to fight,” she offers.

Ivan glares down at him, before he turns towards Alina. Alina watches Aleksander for a few more, tense seconds, before she gives a small nod.

“We need to learn,” she offers quietly.

The brown haired man finally snorts, “If you say so.”

He looks at Aleksander with a barely disguised scowl of distaste, before he squeezes Alina’s shoulder. Aleksander frowns at the contact, but just as quickly as it occurs, it’s over, and Ivan is crossing the threshold of the stage to speak to Fedyor with a mechanical determination.

Zoya whistles, “Well, you do have one talent,” she chides her sister.

Alina sighs, “Don’t start.”

Aleksander ignores the bickering. And draws in a deep breath, as he looks at her and only her, “Spar with me.”

Alina shifts, caught off-guard by the request, “I’m just here to watch tonight. I have patrol tomorrow.”

“You look sick.”

“I’ve been busy hunting the man who lives in my basement.”

“Do you think you’re beyond learning?”

Alina sends him an acidic look, before she relents, “Fine. One spar.”

“With powers.”

She stills at that. As does Zoya. Alina presses her lips together, evaluating, before she concedes once more, “No Cut. I don’t want to destroy the theatre.”

“Alina-“ Zoya warns.

Alina’s only response is to shrug out of her guard’s jacket. She wears, once again, just a simple linen blouse underneath, bunched at the elbows.

“He wants to make an example,” she raises her eyebrows in challenge at him, “Well, then, let’s make an example.”

In truth, he just wanted to remember, once more, what it felt like to use his powers alongside their balance. To have those moments in the forest back once again, if only for a little while.

He discards his shirt, and they walk towards the center of the hollowed-out stage.

Aleksander lets his breathing even out, and once again, everything else fades into scenery. Right now, there are only the two of them, walking around each other in small circles. Alina wears a calculating expression, watching his feet.

She should be watching his hands.

He decides to make the first move, and quickly ribbons of shadow extend from his fingers. He notices, as the one motion, the theatre around them falls very, very silent. None of the Grisha aside from Alina have seen him summon.

The shadows snake out, writhing against the floor of the stage and towards Alina. She scowls, before she makes a crescent motion with her arm. Sunlight makes a scythe before her boots, dispelling the dark tendrils. Already, her pale skin takes on a healthy flush with the use of her power.

He decides to push further.

There is a second of rest before Aleksander summons more shadow, faster and stronger, and they surge at Alina once more. She dodges the first wave, and at the second she repeats her earlier motion with more ferocity. The light makes a flash instead of a glow, and if they didn’t have the other Grisha’s attention before, they certainly have it now.

 _Good,_ he thinks. Because maybe Alina is right. Maybe he does want an example.

Apparently tired of the defensive, Alina comes at him instead. Her hands have domes of sunlight in them, ready for use, but it is with her fists and legs that she attacks him. Aleksander dodges the snap of her heel as it comes at his side, returning with a side step that positions him behind her. He doesn’t hit her, even when there’s an opening. Instead, he waits to see what she’ll do next.

She doesn’t disappoint him. Almost as quickly, Alina swerves around and launches a fist at his face. He notices, with a dark amusement, that Alina is aiming for the place that is still tender from Ivan’s punch. Morevna, apparently, fights dirty.

He grabs her wrist, and focuses all of his attention into his ability to be an amplifier. Alina freezes, as if struck by lightning, as her own power magnifies at his touch. He can make the experience soothing, if he wants. But right now he wants her to feel the intensity of her power reaching out to meet his own. He wants her to crave it as badly as he does.

Alina rips her arm away, and he feels her opposite fist connect with his stomach. It’s hard, but it only makes him stagger instead of completely lose his breath.

She backs away from him, rattled by his touch, and both of them stare at their opponent. Alina with caution, and Aleksander with the smallest of grins forming.

“Summon,” he orders.

He can see something similar to fear in her eyes. Not of him, but of herself. Of how badly she wants to use her ability against him. Alina shakes her head.

Stubborn. Always stubborn. He’ll have to make her.

He brings his arms overhead-

“No Cut!” She cries out in protest.

-and claps his hands together.

A boom sounds through the audience hall, and darkness covers them all. He hears the muffled screams of confusion, of both Zoya and Ivan calling out Alina’s name, but he ignores it all. He withdraws his darkness until it’s tighter around them, just him and Alina under its cover.

Alina is still, confused as she was confused back in the prison, and it allows him to sneak in easily behind her.

He wraps his arms around her stomach, and she tenses from head to toe in his hold.

“What is this?” She whispers, as the darkness grows deeper. Soon they can’t even make out the sounds around them. The direction of the ceiling or the floor. There is only them, and disorientation.

“Part of what I can do,” he says into her ear, “I’ve become stronger since the valley, Alina.”

“The valley again,” Alina’s voice is an irritated mutter, “You’ve mentioned it before.”

“It’s where I saw you last.”

“You’re insane.”

His grip tightens. “You know I’m not.”

She’s quiet for a few moments. “…I know I’ve never been to a valley.”

Aleksander brings one of the arms around her stomach across her shoulders, leaning down so his lips barely graze the shell of her ear, “Stop lying to me.”

Alina takes a deep breath. He hears her heart hammering against her chest, “I haven’t.”

He brings his lips to kiss the back of her neck, and with his touch, the familiar song stretches between them. He feels her power rising and ebbing like a tide, building into a crescendo kept tightly contained and almost breaching.

“Do you miss this? I have.”

Alina swallows. “What is it.”

“Your power. With mine.” He presses her back tighter against his chest, “Balance.”

She’s still in his arms. She doesn’t lean into him, but nor does she push away.

“Aren’t you tired of being alone, Alina.”

He hears her whisper a quiet “Yes,” before blinding sun emits from her body like a beacon, shattering the dome of darkness that envelops them.

When the light fades, they are no longer in the shadows, but back in the middle of the stage. And all eyes are on them. Aleksander’s arms still hold her to him, the embrace undeniably intimate. And it’s very still for a moment, until Ivan storms off the stage and slams a side door closed behind him.

“Ivan-“ Alina starts, and the force with which she rips out of his grip surprises Aleksander, “ _Let go_.”

His point already proven, he does. And Alina is a blur of white and navy as she crosses the stage and exits out the same door.

Zoya arches a fine brow, and breaks the tension that has settled over them all like a blanket, “You certainly put on a show, darkling.”

Aleksander clenches his jaw, looking at the same door. He takes a step towards it.

“Don’t.” Zoya says flatly.

“Why not.”

“Because as much as I don’t want to admit it, we need you. And you’ve already pushed too far where Ivan is concerned.”

“And is Ivan that important.”

Zoya’s words are cool, “Family is always that important.”

His mind conjures up the image of a woman with black hair and eyes, running fingers through his hair. His mother, hopefully still in Kerch.

There’s the sound of muffled shouting from beyond the stage’s exit.

“Well, I think practice is over for tonight,” Zoya says crisply, watching the other Grisha like a hawk until they begin to disperse from the theatre, “And I think,” she continues, lips pursed, “That tonight you are staying at my house.”

He’s never heard a more repulsive idea. Aleksander frowns, and moves towards the exit.

“Darkling,” Zoya warns.

He ignores her, and crosses the stage. Opens the door.

At the end of a shadowed hall, he sees them. She is pressed against the wall, fingers holding fistfuls of his shirt. His arm is wrapped tightly around her waist, the other hand cupping the back of her head as he kisses her. Neither notice his entrance, or his exit. In that moment, they only have time for each other.

Aleksander closes the door and turns away from it. His jaw clenches. A weight sinks onto his chest, ugly and seething. His mind travels back to Alina’s home, to the two mugs on the mantle.

“Change your mind?” Zoya asks.

She had called him family. And the truth of Alina’s latest betrayal carves itself into reality.

“Her husband.” He finally says, hating the word.

Zoya sends him an incredulous look, and it’s clear she has a barb on the tip of her tongue. But something about his expression, of the tightly compressed rage he is holding inside of him, must be enough for her to still it.

“As I said,” she repeats firmly, “Tonight, you stay at my house.”

Because the last week has held so many twists and turns that he no longer knows what to make of the path, he follows her as she leads the way out of the theatre.

\--

“My husband is _otkazat’sya,_ ” she begins matter-of-factly, as they walk further down the streets of Kribirsk, “He doesn’t know what I am, and I’d like to keep it that way.”

His face twists with disdain.

Zoya glares, “In case you’ve forgotten, the penalty for assisting Grisha is execution. If he’s ever questioned, ignorance will be an ally.” She purses her lips before continuing, “Now pay attention, because I’m in no mood to be repetitive: he thinks I spend my time working at a charity for Ravkan refugees. Child orphans. That’s where I’ve been, that’s where you’ve been with me.” She looks at him, sighs.

“As for you…I suppose we’ll keep you my cousin the painter.”

He doesn’t care.

“Do you have a name, cousin the painter?”

He can’t say Piotr, so another alias comes out instead, “Anton.”

They walk past that invisible line that separates peasant from impoverished, and he is surprised to see Zoya stop outside of a rundown townhouse, framed closely on each side by neighbors. It is old, and weathered, and much smaller than the house that Alina-

His fist tightens.

Aleksander looks at the fur, the silk, the pearls she wears. The haughty disdain of nobility does not match the building before them.

“Stop gawking, it makes you look insipid,” Zoya grumbles, before she pulls her fur around her and makes a few, quick steps to the door.

He follows her in.

The house is worn, but comfortable. Old, beaten furniture rests in the center of the room: a low table, and some cushions. A divan rests in front of the fire. And, near the door, there is a hanger with a Queen’s soldier’s uniform on it, with soldier’s boots on the floor.

“We have company, be presentable,” Zoya calls out in warning to the expanse of the house.

Aleksander closes his eyes, and tries to banish the image of Alina kissing another man. Another husband. He hears footfalls, and a friendly, male voice.

“You’re early,” he says, “Dinner’s not yet finished, so I can set another plate-“

Aleksander opens his eyes, and does not move when he sees the speaker.

Because, years ago, Aleksander once met a boy from a valley. A butcher’s son.

“This is my cousin, Anton. He’s studying painting-“

A butcher’s son, with blond hair. And blue eyes.

“-Anton, this is my husband, Mal.”

Aleksander takes a few steps backwards, before he turns and leaves as fast as he can from the house. He doesn’t hear the cries of Zoya’s confusion behind him, or _that man’s_ concerned questions. He only knows that something is undeniably and impossibly wrong.

Because, years ago, Aleksander knows he killed the man standing in Zoya’s sitting room.

Aleksander keeps moving, and doesn’t stop until he nears the walls of Pravdovret once more.


	5. The Second Life: The Heretic (part iii)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This life is going to be extended by another part :’|
> 
> Also! I finally read Demon of the Wood (UGLY CRYING IT WAS SO GOOD) so things should be canon-compliant with that from here on out! I don’t think there was anything too off in my previous chapters/other fic, but if there is um… IGNORE IT PLEASE 8||||

**vii.**

He means to go to Pravdovret.   
Instead he stands outside her door.

Aleksander doesn’t knock, but he doesn’t leave either. He spends what feels like an eternity standing outside of Alina’s door, with its heavy brass lock, and tries to understand why he saw a dead man in the house of Alina’s sister.

Because he remembers.

Over the years, faces have left him and names have disappeared, but he remembers the butcher’s son. Not quite as well as he remembers the girl of the valley, but well enough.

 _Mal._ He remembers, too. Zoya had called the butcher’s son Mal.

In his head, in his memories, he knows for certain that the butcher’s son was dead when he left him on the mountainside. Just like he was certain that her bones littered the valley.

Aleksander swallows, and one of his hands goes inside the pocket of his vest. Where there rests a handkerchief, frayed and unravelling and holding a red bird on its corner.

He knocks.

The door opens, slowly. He sees a light brown eye with a dark circle underneath it in the rift between threshold and home.

There’s the sound of a relieved sigh, a chain unfastening, and then the door swings wider. And Alina stands before him, wearing her white shirt, always bunched at the elbows. In her hand is a candle, flickering in the dark space between them.

“We were worried,” she mutters.

Aleksander’s fingers tighten around the bird, once more, “Were you really.”

Her eyes narrow, and she takes a step back to let him into the house. But he doesn’t move forward, “Yes. You’re one of us, now.”

One of us. Like Stigg or Harshaw or Marie. Not like a butcher’s son. Not like an Ivan.

“Where were you born,” he blurts.

“What?”

“Where were you born. It wasn’t Kribirsk.”

Alina frowns, “Why does that matter?”

“Answer me.”

A look crosses her face, distant and aching, and it speaks of things that are gone without ever having been lost. “I don’t know.”

“How do you not know where you were born?”

She shakes her head, “Maybe you had better sleep-“

“ _Where_ were you born, Alina.”

Alina snorts in irritation, holding the lantern up and rolling her eyes, “I don’t _know,_ darkling. Not,” she scowls at him, “That it’s any of your business, but I was adopted.”

His heart thrums, his fingers wrap tighter around the handkerchief in his pocket. It doesn’t even matter that she doesn’t call him Piotr, because one false name is as good as another when she refuses to use his real one. “You know Zoya’s husband.”

“My brother-in-law? We’ve met.”

“Do you love him?”

Alina recoils, just a little. It’s enough. “…What in the Saints’ names are you talking about.”

“The butcher’s son, do you love him?”

She shakes her head, more to clear a fog than to deny, and sighs, “Are you coming in or not? I don’t feel like having an entire afternoon’s worth of split wood being wasted because you want to loom.”

“No. I’m going back to Pravdovret.”

It gets very, very silent. Alina takes a step forward, and watches him warily.

“Pravdovret,” she echoes, as if she heard correctly but wishes she hadn’t.

“I want you to come with me.”

“Why.”

“I left something there.”

“Was it your common sense?”

He reaches out and grabs the opposite side of her lantern. She glares in response, and keeps her own grip on the light firm. Aleksander almost smiles at the stalemate, but his mind is still haunted by the image of the butcher’s son. Of the heavy iron chest with its locked secrets.

“Do you remember how I said we could change things?”

Her lips press together, briefly, but her voice is level, “What about it?”

“Come with me to Pravdovret, and we can do it.”

Alina breathes in, and her grip on the lantern goes lax as she considers his offer. Gently, he takes it from her.

“It’s in the cathedral, isn’t it?”

He is sure he fails to hide his surprise, “…yes.”

“And you killed those guards for it.”

“Yes.”

“What’s to stop you from killing more?”

“You.”

He doesn’t know what she’s thinking. The girl in the valley he could read like a book. But this Morevna is still strange to him. Strange and so unbearably familiar. And he needs her.

“How can I trust you?”

The question stings. But he considers. After a moment or two, he withdraws the handkerchief from his pocket and offers it to her.

Alina hesitantly takes it. And his hand tightens around the lantern when he watches her draw two fingers over the now half-formed bird in the cloth. Her forehead wrinkles in thought, and he wants, more than ever in that moment, to kiss her.

“You had this at the prison,” she finally mumbles, looking away from the design and into his eyes.

He nods, and remembers her searching his pockets before taking him to his cell. Of how badly he wanted to kill her then.

“Keep it.”

Alina looks at him, in that Morevna and therefore foreign way of hers, before she releases a long, slow sigh. “Let me get my boots.”

He watches her light, thin hands fold the handkerchief and put it into her pocket, then tie the laces of her boots. “You trust me, then.”

Alina snorts, “The handkerchief is a nice thought, darkling.” She shrugs the other boot on. Stands. “But there’s nothing stopping you from taking it off my corpse.”

She walks by him without another word, keeping a foot of space between them even in the small gap of her doorway.

\--

The walk back to Pravdovret should be silent. But he has questions, and not much patience.

“Where is your husband,” he can’t stop the bitterness that attaches itself to the word.

If Alina notices, she ignores it, “He is at work.”

“It’s evening.”

“He goes to work when they need him.”

“And when’s that?”

She groans in frustration, “Why? Why does it matter to you?”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were married.”

“Because I didn’t have time to give you my life’s story between being kidnapped and whatever it was you did at the theatre, you frustrating idiot!”

His jaw clenches, “I didn’t kidnap you.”

Her mouth opens, then closes. And opens again. It seems as if he’s finally made Morevna speechless. “Please don’t tell me you thought you were being…” her mouth twists into a grimace, “ _Romantic._ ”

This time, he is the one unable to form words. He frowns, looking down at his boots as they walk the cobblestones of Kribirsk. It is quiet for a few blocks, but when Morevna speaks it is clear and direct.

“I love my husband.”

He slows in his step, just for a moment, “What.”

“Ivan. I love him. I’m happy I married him. So,” Alina looks away, clearly uncomfortable, “Don’t go getting ideas. And don’t ask about Mal.”

“Ideas.” He repeats quietly, staring at the lantern in his hand, “What sort of ideas do you believe I have?”

She bites down on her lip, “Tonight. At the theatre. That crossed a line.”

“Because it upset your husband.”

Alina snaps her head towards him, eyes flashing, “No. Because it upset _me._ ”

“Why.”

“Because I’m married.”

“So.”

“ _So_?”

“When does your husband go to work.”

Alina takes a deep breath, “I’m serious, Piotr.”

“My name’s not Piotr.”

“Well, give me your real one then if you’re going to be sour about it-“

“ _I did._ ”

She slows next to him, watching as he moves in front of her. He doesn’t care. She just needs to see. Once she sees what’s in that chest, things will make sense again. She’ll forget about her husband, the butcher’s son. She’ll forget about everything but him.

Alina’s voice follows him, “What’s wrong with you?”

He takes another few steps before stopping and turning around, but doesn’t answer her.

Morevna’s eyebrows are drawn into a deep crease again, and her hands are placed deeply into the pockets of her trousers. “Are you acting this way because of what I can do? Be honest.”

His fingers curl towards his palm.

Her voice is measured and even, “It’s alright. I understand-“ his teeth grind together, “-you’re not the first. And I’m sorry you’re on your own.”

He closes his eyes. Behind them he sees vests, embroidered with flowers. Hats with stags on them. Two oddly shaped mugs.

“And I will be your ally. If you want. But I’m not going to be anything else.” She takes a hesitant step forward, “You don’t need to be alone. We, Zoya and I and the rest, we’ll make sure of that.”

“I don’t care about Zoya.”

“Then what do you want?”

“You to remember.”

“Remember _what_?”

Aleksander frowns, and thinks for a moment of just walking away. Leaving her. He starts to increase his pace, before he remembers that she is the one with the keys to Pravdovret. And he stops once again, waiting for her to catch up.

She does, eventually. But it takes enough time for him to realize that she, too, was thinking about just walking away. That she was willing to abandon him makes something bitter stir in his chest.

“What are we getting in Pravdovret,” she mutters out between clenched teeth, “Because it better be worth it.”

Aleksander looks at her lips, pressed thin. Her eyes, shadowed to the point of looking bruised.

“It is.”

Alina tilts her head. And it’s quiet between them and the streets of Kribirsk that surround the wall of Pravdovret. Finally, her shoulders slump.

“Alright. Then let’s get it over with.”

\--

“It’s a little late to be studying paintings, isn’t it?” Mikhael asks with a laugh, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.

Alina smiles, polished and rehearsed and not a hint of tension from their earlier conversation, “Artists.”

MIkhael looks at her papers without reading them, and just that easily they are back in the walled city within a city.

\--

“Who was Sankt Ilya?” Alina asks from the cathedral’s entrance, hanging back as Aleksander drags the chest from underneath the altar.

He pauses, trying to think of the best way to answer. The way with the least suspicion. Aleksander gives a short grunt as the chest slides out. “…Why do you ask.”

He hears her boots coming closer, echoing in the abandoned building, “There’s dozens of buildings in Pravdovret. You chose this one. I’m curious as to why.”

“You don’t answer my questions.”

“You have too many.”

The chest comes fully out, and Aleksander stands. He’s surprised at how close Alina is, already on the other side of the table. Her eyes dart down to the chest. She frowns.

“That wasn’t here before.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

Her brown eyes widen with realization, “…you came here for this.”

He nods.

“Did you let yourself get arrested?”

“Yes.”

She takes a step closer to him, eyes not moving from the chest, “How did you know it was here?”

Aleksander follows her gaze, his own resting on the chest as well, “My mother.”

“Is she Grisha?”

“Yes.”

“Where is she now?”

“Kerch.”

“Is that where you’re from?”

“No.”

Alina brings a hand to rest on the iron surface of it, trailing along the edge until her fingers rest over the lock, “You’ll have to break it open.”

He brings his hand to the lock as well, and Alina glares up at him when his fingers rest over hers. He ignores it, “I was waiting.”

“For what.”

“You.”

She jerks back, but he keeps his hand around her own. “-me?”

“Yes, you,” he smiles then, because even if she doesn’t realize it now, she’ll realize it soon enough, “…you and I are going to change the world.”

Alina takes a while to respond. He runs his thumb over her knuckles and she frowns, “Change it how?”

Aleksander moves closer, and his smile grows, just a little, as he steps behind her, “How do you want to change it, Alina?”

She tenses in front of him, and he brings his arms down on either side of her, so his free hand is resting on the lid of the chest. He doesn’t let go of her hand, letting his powers flow easily between them at the contact.

Alina’s breathing is slow, “No more executions.”

“Is that all?”

“…no more hiding. I want-“ she turns suddenly, facing him. They are close, all he has to do is lean forward and their lips would touch, “-I want to be Ravkan. I want my family to be who they are, not reduced to old theaters and dirty cellars.” Her eyes narrow bitterly, “Zoya should have a palace. Ivan shouldn’t have to let his patients die because he can’t heal them fast enough-“

He interrupts her concerns for her husband, and presses his forehead against hers. “We want the same things, Alina.”

She bites down on her lip once again, “Wanting is dangerous.”

“Not if you’re strong.”

“We’re not strong. We’re hunted.”

“Together, we would be stronger than the Queen’s army.”

Her brown eyes take in his expression, the corners of her lips tug down, “…You actually believe that.”

“I do.”

“Because of the chest?”

“Because I know what Grisha can do when they’re allowed to be what they are.”

Alina moves her hand to one of the arms that are caging her, “You’re old.” She whispers with realization, “…You must be.”

He backs away from her, reluctantly dropping her hand. They were almost the same age, once. Aleksander takes a deep breath, “You’ll need to move.”

Alina walks to the side of the chest, and crosses her arms over her chest. He doesn’t look at her, instead bending down on one knee before it. He closes his eyes, concentrating as hard as he can, before he moves his hand back over its lock.

His fingertips trail, and with it, a small Cut slices through the soldered metal as though it were butter. And a smile worms its way onto his face as he straightens in his crouch, hands braced against the lid.

It opens with a creak.

Aleksander stands, and when he looks down, a sinking disappointment starts in his throat and travels all the way to the bottom of his belly. His hands pick it up.

Inside the chest, there is only one thing. A book, encased in old, faded green leather. Pages of it are falling out. And from what he can already see, there are small, circular holes in the parchment from worms. The ink is faded to near invisibility.

Alina leans over, “A journal?”

Yes. And only one. Beaten, and barely readable.

Aleksander throws it back in the chest, and storms out of the cathedral.

\--

He walks until he is stopped.

Then he draws his arm down diagonally, and walks some more.

\--

An hour later, she finds him sitting on a bench on the opposite side of Pravdovret. By the building that holds the paintings he is supposedly studying.

And she’s not happy.

“We need to go.”

Aleksander looks up at her, but his jaw remains clenched. “Let them come.”

“No. Get up.”

He turns and stares at the walls of the Queen’s art gallery instead. They are painted in rich greens, golds, and reds. Aleksander focuses on the green strands, intertwined with gold. He’s startled when he feels thin fingers underneath his chin, tilting it back.

Alina’s light brown eyes tear holes into him, “You need to get up. And we need to leave. They found the body.”

Regret fills him, for a moment. Not at the death, but at how carelessly he left it behind him. Before she can remove her hand from his face, he grabs her wrist tightly. She startles at the connection, but does not move away.

“Why aren’t you turning me in?” He demands, his voice low. “You’re a guard.”

Something softens in Alina’s face, for just one brief and vulnerable moment, “…I think I am a Grisha first.”

He shifts his fingers until they are over her pulse. It’s steady.

“They are going to question Mikhael. He’ll have no choice but to tell them who he saw come in to Pravdovret. We’ll be suspects. Because they are already asking how I escaped, even though I filed a report.” She takes a deep breath, “So I need to know that you are more than words. That you won’t be careless with dead guards every time you’re in a tantrum.”

Several replies form on his tongue. Anger, mostly, at the insinuation that he was both careless and in a tantrum. But a realization is stronger.

“You’re with me,” he whispers, his hand smoothing up her arm.

She watches him intently, “For now. For Grisha.”

It’s enough. He nods, and she visibly uncoils.

“Good, hold my arm,” she commands, as he stands, “And don’t speak.”

“Why.”

“Because hiding us is useless if someone hears a voice with no body.”

He doesn’t know what he expects, but it isn’t what happens next. Gold crawls over his arm, flickering and then vanishing. And with it, his body.

“Keep hold of me. And don’t make any noise.” She repeats firmly.

Aleksander looks intently at where his arm should be, his feet. He can do something similar with shadow, but only in the darkened places. This is…

He moves his fingers from her arm to her hand.

And that is how they walk out of Pravdovret.

\--

When they arrive back at Alina’s home, Ivan is waiting for them. He is wearing a similar kosovorotka shirt, red and white, though this one is wrinkled and has small, rust-collared spots on the sleeves. Dried blood. His dark eyes do not leave Aleksander’s face.

“The Queen’s guard came back.” Is all he says, words flat in a way that makes Alina wince beside him.

“What did they want.”

“You.”

She takes a deep breath, “What did you tell them?”

Ivan looks at his wife for the first time, and the way his shoulders slump down makes something curdle in Aleksander’s stomach, “You were with your cousin.”

Alina visibly swallows, before she crosses the distance between her and Ivan and throws her arms around him. Ivan is stiff for a moment, before he returns the embrace, pressing her tightly against his chest and burying his face in the crook of her neck with a relieved sigh.

Aleksander scowls at the ground.

“Stop having guards come to the door,” Ivan mumbles, pulling away and putting his hands on the sides of her face. He stares at her for a few seconds, before pressing a slow kiss to her hairline.

“This time it was worth it,” Alina whispers back, her fingers resting over his.

“You can say that every time, and never be right. _Osel_.”

“You married this jackass.”

“And I would like to keep her out of prison,” Ivan’s face draws grim, “Or the gallows.”

Aleksander watches Alina’s expression carefully. It’s blank. As rehearsed as her smiles.

“Let’s go inside,” she finally says, taking a step away from a husband who seems reluctant to let her go. Alina looks over her shoulder, and almost golden eyes meet grey ones, “Will you stay?”

Ivan’s stance goes rigid, and Aleksander isn’t surprised by the animosity suddenly directed his way. He looks at the married couple, and tries to tell himself that what he’s feeling isn’t jealousy. He would never be envious to something as common as a _Corporalki._

Because she’s still his balance, no matter what else she pretends to be. And that means she is undeniably necessary to him. And him to her.

“Yes.”

Alina dips her chin, “Good. I have something for you.”

\--

They sit at a table. Alina makes tea that tastes as though it has been blended with rat poison. Ivan doesn’t bother to pretend to drink it, but Aleksander suffers through a few sips. She tells her husband about Pravdovret—the chest, the guards, and their escape. Aleksander watches Ivan in lieu of speaking. Glares at his lopsided mug.

His attention is diverted when Alina reaches into her guard’s coat, and withdraws a musty, green, leather-bound journal. She gingerly places it on the table, between the three of them. Aleksander feels the anger swell inside of him once more at the sight of it.

“I looked at the chest,” Alina says, “There were no inscriptions or hidden compartments. And the walls were solid metal, which explains the weight despite the contents.”

Aleksander’s gaze is fixated on the journal, a small black hole in the center of the room.

“I’m not sure what the journal says,” she continues carefully.

“But,” Ivan grunts out for her.

She runs a hand through her hair, causing stray pieces to escape from her bun, “ _But_ I have…a friend who restores documents. He might be able to help.”

Ivan’s face twists into an expression of loathing that Aleksander has only seen directed at him, “No.”

“It’s important,” Alina insists. She looks directly at him, and Aleksander feels his mouth go dry, “Isn’t it?”

He looks at the journal. Its fraying edges. Its rotted binding. Its worm-eaten pages. It’s the only thing he has. The only tether between him and a solution.

“It is,” Aleksander says softly, but with undeniable conviction.

“Then we’ll go,” Alina folds her hands on the table.

“You’re putting a lot of faith in this,” Ivan mutters at his wife, “And a lot of faith in a kidnapper.”

“I’m much more than that. Which you know, Healer.”

“I know nothing about you,” Ivan spits back, rage flaring, “Other than you’ve beaten my wife, held her hostage-“

“-Ivan-“

“-and now you want to jeopardize her position in the guard. For what? _Books_?”

“Journals.” Aleksander says carefully, trying to keep his composure checked, “And I would jeopardize a lot more, if it meant safety for Grisha. Alina would say the same.”

She hesitantly nods. Ivan scowls. “And how are _journals_ going to save Grisha?”

Aleksander’s gaze drifts to Alina. “That’s what I hope your friend will tell us.”

\--

After the tea is gone, it is Ivan who leads Aleksander back to the room in the basement.

As soon as he descends a step, Alina’s husband slams the door behind him.

 

**viii.**

Alina’s friend is a wiry man, with arthritic hands and unruly brown hair that juts up at every possible angle. And he’s expensive.

“What did you do to it,” he mutters, pinching the spine of the journal between his thumb and index finger. His fingers, when he opens the journal on his work table, touch the pages as though they are as delicate as the threads of spider webs.

“Found it,” Alina says flatly, crossing her arms over her chest and looking out a window, “Can you do anything about it?”

The man pushes up circular glasses with the heel of his hand. Instead of answering her, he trails his fingers again. Aleksander feels hope for the first time when he sees the ink growing darker under his touch.

A _Fabrikator._

“Probably. After a while. It’s in terrible condition,” the last statement is punctuated with an accusatory glance. As if they have brought him a dying child instead of a well-worn book.

Silence stretches.

“I’m busy now,” the man says bluntly.

Alina fights a smile, “Right. How much?”

Round eyes magnified by ridiculous glasses land on Aleksander. He frowns, fiddling with the page again. Worm-holes close. ”…See what it says, first. Then I’ll decide.”

Aleksander leans forward, close enough to intimidate. The shadows lining the windows and work tables begin to flicker, “No one else sees it.”

The _Fabrikator_ gives a slow swallow. Then blinks. “Who would want to? It’s in terrible condition.”

The shadows recede. And the _Fabrikator_ absently dismisses them with a promise of results within two weeks.

“Is he trustworthy?” Aleksander asks her as they walk towards the theatre.

“Yes. He’s just…” Alina shrugs, “He’s…eccentric.”

“He’s unstable.”

She smiles a little wistfully, “Well. That’s David for you.”

\--

The guards bring Alina in for questioning three days later. She leaves without resistance, and he and Ivan pass the hours she is gone with stony silence in the sitting room until Ivan breaks it.

“How many people have you killed, darkling?”

Aleksander is surprised by the question, but considers it. “I never kill for sport, if that’s what matters.”

Ivan grunts, glaring down at his thick bread and coffee. A matching meal is in front of Aleksander. “I guess it is.” He sends him a look, “Several of those guards were Alina’s friends.”

Aleksander’s fingers tighten on his cup.

“One of the two you killed near the Winter Palace, Alexei, went through training with her. They were close.”

“Why are you telling me this.”

“I don’t know,” Ivan takes a sip of his coffee, “Guilt won’t bring them back. But I think I just want you to realize how strong my wife is.”

Aleksander tears his bread into smaller pieces, “I know Alina’s strong.”

“Maybe.” Ivan’s watching the door, “I consider myself strong, too. I’ve lost brothers, to the Queen’s guard. Because of what they could do. Three of them,” he turns back to his guest, “But I don’t think even I could work with their killers just because they _might_ be able to change things. Certainly not silently. But my wife,” Aleksander notices with irritation that he keeps calling her that, “She’s silent. She lets herself be brought in by the Queen’s guard. For you.”

“And that angers you.”

“Yes,” Ivan admits, “I don’t like you in our home. I don’t like the way you look at her. And I really don’t like that she is risking exposure to run your errands in Pravdovret.” He savagely bites into a piece of bread. When he’s done chewing he speaks again, “She’s different than the rest of us. Powerful. If she dies, I won’t be the only grieving.”

Aleksander looks into his cup once more. In the murky, oily film at the top of his coffee, he sees the Firebird. “She won’t die.”

“Not before me,” Ivan agrees, “I will crush one thousand hearts if that’s what needs to be done. But they don’t get Alina.” He takes another drink, watching Aleksander’s expression carefully, “I will let you continue to stay in my home, darkling. If you promise me that.”

Aleksander suspects that it isn’t Ivan’s decision if he stays, but he understands an offering when he sees one, “…I’ll keep her safe.”

Ivan finally gives a slow nod, before leaning back in his chair. He continues to stare at him as if he were a coiled snake, ready to strike, “What does it mean,” he finally offers, though it sounds like he doesn’t want the answer, “That you can control the shadows, while Alina controls the sun.”

 _It means that she’s my balance. It means that she is meant to be beside me when we remake Ravka. It means that you are in the way._ “That we’re going to change things.”

His mouth twists into what might be a lesser grimace, or perhaps his version of a smile, “Change would be good.” Ivan looks around his home, eyes resting on the mantle full of awkward pottery, “…we would like to start a family, one day.”

His words are muted, as if they are spoken from this idealistic future he is waiting for. But they make something grow cold and hard in Aleksander. He looks at the man before him, his square features. His hard jaw. The wide set of his shoulders. And he wants to tell him, so badly, that he doesn’t matter. That if he does have children with Alina, he’ll be just as much of dust to them as Aleksander’s own father was to him. That he’s too weak for his wife, too ordinary. As common as the dirt that forms his bones and muscle and skin.

Instead, Aleksander drinks another forceful swallow of coffee. And, because he suddenly and intensely wants to hurt this man, he says something else instead, “I imagine that will be hard to do with an _otkazat’sya_ brother-in-law.”

Aleksander sees the hard swallow Ivan gives, and a vindictive pleasure hits him at his barely concealed disdain.

“…Alina’s taken you to meet Mal?”

“Zoya.”

Ivan’s jaw clenches, and he gives a forced shrug, before he drops his gaze from the pottery and instead attacks his breakfast with a newly found vigor.

\--

Alina returns two hours later with a black eye and a split lip.

“I’m suspended,” she says in a tired voice, before she ignores both of them and walks a straight line to her bedroom.

Ivan quickly goes after her, but Aleksander sits still in his chair. His hands make fists.

Her face will heal.

The people who did that to her won’t.  
He’ll make sure of it.

 

**ix.**

Two weeks pass with heavy silences at the breakfast table. With dog-eared corners of Alina’s poetry books. With practice at an abandoned theatre, with Grisha who are finally becoming better than hopeless. With Ivan going to work (he’s a doctor, it turns out), and with Alina and Aleksander being alone together, yet still so much further apart than what he’d like them to be.

Zoya has been clear that he is not invited back to her home. He’s glad for it, because he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to stop himself from killing the butcher’s son a second time.

And the whispers around Kribirsk grow louder when news of the third dead guard hits the street. Now even the peasants know about the renegade Grisha, and Aleksander recognizes the subdued note of fear that marks the beginning of paranoia.

He starts taking different routes to the theatre with Zoya. Aleksander, more than most people, understands what it means to be watched.

\--

Two weeks pass, and when he and Alina go to pick up the journal, the man named David only shoves it in his hands, and leaves without another word or request for payment.

\--

They read the journal together. And he hopes that she understands what it means, for him to share Morozova’s secrets that he originally intended to keep for himself.

“You can hardly tell worms ate half of it,” she mumbles from her chair across the table, one of her legs folded over the knee of the other.

“…Your _Materialki_ does good work.”

“He does,” she agrees. Her split lip is healed, and only a small amount of bruising remains around the corners of her eye. He’s asked how she received both, but silence was her only, taxing answer, “Is there anything of use?”

Aleksander stares at the words on the page. They are disjointed, difficult to distinguish. While the _Fabrikator_ has succeeded in restoring some parts, others are gone forever- torn pages beyond repair. There are, however, a few notations worth considering.

“Maybe.”

She looks younger, now that she is no longer reporting for work within Pravdovret. Her brown hair hangs down around her shoulders, and instead of her uniform she wears a plain, blue linen dress.

“Maybe,” she repeats, leaning over to look closer at the print. She moves until she is sitting on top of the table, and a piece of her hair brushes against his face. She frowns, oblivious to their sudden proximity in favor of focusing on the journal. “He talks a lot about a hare. There’s even an illustration near the end.”

Aleksander nods, “It might be a cipher. There are supposed to be several journals.”

“And what’s the point of them?”

“Morozova…experimented.” Aleksander runs his fingers down the page, “In his journals, he’s supposed to have found ways to do what no other Grisha can do. To augment our powers.”

An almost feverish look crosses Alina’s face, “Beyond amplifiers?”

“Beyond anything the world’s ever seen,” he whispers, shifting forward.

“And you think if we find the rest of these journals, we could use it?”

Aleksander swallows, “Yes.”

She’s quiet, looking at the fine, restored script on the page. And it’s almost with reverence, or at least awe. Maybe hope. He can’t stop himself, doesn’t want to stop himself, as he lifts his hand and his fingers touch her cheek. She freezes, and he takes advantage of the pause to slide his fingers until they are buried in her hair. He pulls her face gently down to his-

“Stop it.”

He almost doesn’t. But he also doesn’t let her go, and his fingers curl in the strands of her brown hair. She is close enough that he can feel her soft exhales on his face.

Alina almost closes her eyes, but catches herself, “We talked about this.”

“You loved me once,” he says quietly, as if saying it out loud will make it come true again.

“I’ve known you barely a month.”

“That doesn’t matter. I’ve known you for decades.”

She straightens, trying to withdraw. He doesn’t let her, and his other hand moves to hold her wrist tightly. Steel enters her voice, “Let go.”

“Do you really want me to, Alina? You have to know,” he stands from his chair, now towering over her, “You _know_ it’s only the two of us. It’s always only going to be just the two of us. Like calls to like.”

“You’re insane,” she mutters, looking at where his fingers are holding her arm.

“No. I’m right,” and with that conviction, he brings his mouth down to hers.

Their lips touch for less than a second before Alina swings her fist into his temple. He jerks back, more startled than pained, and Alina is sliding off the table and standing as far away from him as she can in the small expanse of her kitchen. Her expression is poisonous. Her hand is still clenched.

“You’re lucky,” she growls out slowly, “that we need you.”

And before he can say anything, Alina spins on her heel and leaves her house, the door punctuating with a final slam.

He grabs the journal, and angrily retreats to the basement. Before he reaches the stairs, he looks at the pottery on the wall, at the ugly, mismatched mugs, and doesn’t resist the urge to shatter one of them against the floor.

\--

He doesn’t see her for three days.

\--

During those three days, Ivan still brings him his breakfast, and Zoya still brings him to the theatre. In the mornings, he reads the journal, and doesn’t think about her. Morozova’s writings tell him many things. They mention something called _merzost,_ of how a Grisha could possibly have more than one amplifier. Of experiment. On Grisha. On his progeny. At the end, as Alina pointed out, the hare is mentioned again.

In the evening, he trains. And two more have joined their number. Twins, who look like the people of Shu Han. Both Heartrenders.

They grow. And he starts showing them how to kill. Sergei takes to it easiest, but he notices a cold, determined ferocity in the way that Ivan stops heartbeats with a wave of his hand.

\--

On the second day, Zoya speaks.

“My _sestrenka_ asked me to offer you our spare room,” she says blithely, as they walk to the theatre.

He glares ahead of him.

“Don’t get too dramatic. I don’t want you. Still, it’s an interesting request,” her words hint at the bear beneath the silk, “I do wonder how it came about.”

“It’s none of your business.”

Her lips purse, an immaculately plucked eyebrow raises, “My business is what I decide it is,” her heel snaps smartly on the stone, “What did you do.”

He remains silent. And Zoya snorts, “I’m beautiful, you know.”

Aleksander sends her a cursory glance, wondering at the necessity of such an admission.

“I’m beautiful, and you have not sent me a single look the entire time we’ve known each other,” she continues, “At first it irritated me. But then you sent looks to Alina, and that made it a concern. Now she stays late at my house, and asks that we give you the spare bedroom after you practically fled the first time.” Zoya’s other heel crashes against the ground.

“Your point.”

“My point, darkling, is that you should find someone more convenient to be infatuated with. Because if it comes down to it, we want her more than we will ever need you. And she doesn’t want you at all in the way you’d like.”

She strides ahead of him, not looking back as she disappears into the theatre. Aleksander stands at the fence for a few moments, before walking away in the opposite direction.

Today is not a day for practice.

\--

On the fourth night, he is woken by the sound of footsteps on the stairs. He’s not sure if he’s surprised when it’s Alina that stands before him, sunlight held in the palm of her hand and dressed in a nightgown. It’s late, and dark enough to be the deeper part of the night.

From the alertness in her eyes, it’s clear she’s been awake for a while. She looks like she’s been just as miserable as him the last few days. He hopes she has. “Let me see the journal.”

Aleksander sits up. Like her, he is only dressed in his sleepwear: loose, cotton trousers, “You tried to get rid of me.”

“You keep forgetting I’m married.”

He ignores her, and this conversation, and pushes himself into a stand. He then walks, barefoot, to the desk. There, nestled carefully between two of Alina’s poetry books, is the journal. He withdraws it, and notices for the first time that it is not in between the two books he last moved.

“You’ve been reading it.”

Alina doesn’t deny it, “Yes. While you’re at the theatre.”

He frowns, opening the journal. Towards the end, there is a piece of scratch paper tucked into a page. A bookmark. He reads where she marked it. There, again, is the discussion of the hare. A detailed picture of one rests on the opposite page, dotted lines forming the ears, and a small, black ‘x’ drawn over its heart.

“I think I’ve figured it out,” she takes a cautious step towards him, light still in her hands. She hovers her finger over the detailed picture, tracing the shape of the hare’s ears in the air, “That’s Ogon River,” she follows it down to the hare’s eyes, “The Bliznet Museums,” its neck, “the Kristall’most.”

Aleksander swallows, seeing the picture in a new light as she draws it. Some things have changed, altered by time and revolving regimes. But the outline, the idea, remains the same. His eyes fall to the heart, “Then that’s-“

She nods, “The Winter Palace.”

The hare is not just an illustration. It’s a map. Of Pravdovret, as it stood over three hundred years ago.

Alina takes a deep breath, “Now what?”

Aleksander stares at the black X, standing solitary from the other structures.

“We find the rest.”

 

**x.**

It takes some discussion, and Aleksander is irritated when Alina includes the _Corporalki_ in the plans, but eventually it is decided. Ivan will go to work. Aleksander will train the Grisha at the theatre with Zoya.

And Alina will search the Winter Palace.

Neither man is happy with the final discussion. Ivan does not want his wife near Pravdovret. Aleksander does not want to be left behind. But Alina is the only one in the room with the power to become invisible, and that, naturally, gives her a final say in the verdict.

\--

A week passes. And unease is growing in Kribirsk at the inability for them to catch a single Grisha in its expanse. But most people continue about their lives, as people are willing to do in troubling times.

\--

Alina comes home every day looking radiant. Her cheeks have a healthy flush, the dark circles under her eyes recede. She eats more thick bread and drinks stronger coffee. But he doesn’t touch her. Not after that afternoon in the kitchen. Not yet.

“I wish I could feel like this all the time,” she confesses, as the three of them have dinner together. It’s a cold soup, and terrible, so he knows she made it and not her _Corporalki._

“You will.” Aleksander promises.

Ivan holds Alina’s hand underneath the table, but he doesn’t argue the point. Instead, the _Corporalki_ looks at Alina’s improving health, and gives a small nod.

\--

The Shu Han twins are leagues above their comrades, but with their presence, Aleksander sees them all improve. Nadia’s manipulation of the wind has grown more precise in her desire to impress, and Ivan has grown more merciless with another _Corporalki_ near his skill level to challenge him.

\--

Another week passes. Alina comes home, and she’s smiling.

“I found where they keep the old library.”

Aleksander almost kisses her again. But her eyes flash with warning so instead he chokes out a question.

“Where?”

“It’s in the Eastern wing, the rooms that overlook the duck pond.”

“Let me come with.”

She shakes her head. “Not yet. I want to make sure I know the guard rotation and where they’re stored first.”

His fists tighten. For this, for her, he doesn’t want to wait any longer.

\--

Ivan challenges him to a spar. The entire theatre stops to watch. Both leave with bruises, black eyes, and broken bones. And then Ivan begrudgingly patches them back together.

\--

“How’s the security?”

Alina sighs, leaning her head back over the armchair as the two of them sit before the fire. Winter is coming in fast and cold this year. And Ivan has been working later and later at the clinic as illness sweeps Kribirsk, “Heavy. Before the library there is a display of eggs.”

“Eggs?”

“The ones made of gold and silver,” she yawns, “With jewels in them,” her neck cracks, “Probably the Grand Duchess’s collection. But I’ll write down the times they patrol in a moment.” Her eyes flutter close.

They sit in silence until Aleksander hears her snores. And he turns, watching her profile in the flickering, dying light of the fire. Once it’s nothing but embers in the fireplace, he stands and slides an arm underneath her neck and legs. With slight effort (she’s always been small), he lifts her like he did that night in the prison, and takes her back to her empty bedroom.

She sprawls out on the bed almost immediately, arms and legs stretched from corner to corner of the mattress, claiming both sides as her own. It makes something soft come over him—he remembers she slept the same way in the valley. And, because he is still weak, he leans over and kisses her cheek.

“Ivan?” Alina mumbles in her sleep, rolling to one side of the bed, leaving half of it empty enough for a bigger occupant to lay down beside her.

Aleksander’s jaw clenches, and he leaves without another word to his own room in the underbelly of the house that is not his.

\--

David starts coming to the theatre. He doesn’t participate in the spars. Instead, he sits to the side, watching them all and sketching something on a canvas pad. Sometimes, Aleksander overhears him talking to Zoya.

“Not like that, are you blind? Narrower sleeves-because we summon _wind_ and _fire,_ that’s why-“

But decides it is not to his interest, and ignores them both.

\--

Another week passes.

\--

Aleksander is reading from her book of poetry, one about an eagle sitting outside of a prison cell, when she walks in, nearly vibrating with an intense, contained energy. In her excitement, she forgets that she is in favor of leaving a foot of space between them and instead hovers over his shoulder.

“The lock to the library is thin, I was able to pick it with a needle.”

He slowly closes the book. “Then…”

She nods, smiling widely for the first time, “I know where they are.”

\--

The next night, they go to the Winter Palace when Ivan goes to work.

Before they leave, he places a black cloak around her shoulders. For the cold.

 

**xi.**

The Winter Palace earns its name. Made of white stone, it spreads throughout the center of Pravdovret, located safely in the center of its own square. Its light colors- mostly white, with accents of the pale blue and gold of Ravka’s flag- make it almost illuminated in the inky black of Ravkan winter. Columns rise in row upon row, and a paved path for the carriages is kept clear of snow. The guards are numerous, wearing their dark blue uniforms, but Alina guides them safely past the patrols in a pattern that is well-rehearsed. His hand doesn’t leave hers.

Aleksander keeps silent, as she has instructed when she is rendering them invisible with her power, though he wants to scoff as she leads them into the interior walls. Huge, lush paintings cover the walls, chandeliers hang from the ceilings like decadent spiders, and the floors are made of wood so polished and faceted it seems to be cut from a chestnut-colored quartz. The lights from the candles catch the crystals of the overhanging structures, and the halls of the palace are illuminated in diamond-shaped patches.

It’s beautiful. It’s ugly.

Alina walks in a determined line, and he follows her. Up a spiral staircase, lined with gold leaf on the railings. Down a skylight walkway, with crushed velvet carpet underfoot. Through a side wing, lined with priceless suits of armor and ancient ceramic vases. Down another hallway, its windows gilded and the domed ceiling at its end covered with blue and gold mosaics.

 _This_ is where his grandfather chose to hide his legacy. And why not? Because surrounded by glimmering jewels and white stone, no one would think to look twice at old leather and rough parchment. Morozova is mad and clever in equal parts.

After what feels near an hour, Alina’s pace slows. The guards begin to walk in tighter circles, and the hallway in front of them has at least ten. Her hand presses firm against his own, and he understands.

They’re close.

She walks in short footfalls, and he does his best to mimic them until they reach a door made of gleaming cherry wood. On either side stands a guard, wearing the double eagle of Ravka on the chests of their armor. Royal guards.

She taps her fingers on the back of his hand. One tap. Two.

On the third, they step forward, just as a guard enters the door. They shadow him, and once they cross the threshold Aleksander takes a breath.

There, beyond the doorway, there are eggs. Dozens of them. Each on its own, velour stand, lining the central walkway of the ballroom. The one closest to him is gold and ivory, opened in half to show a miniature of the Grand Palace of Os Alta inside. Its onion domes are coated in small emeralds, rubies, and pearls, and its details are engraved into silver. Every egg he can see is just as elaborate, just as extravagant.

Alina leads them to a door on the other side of the ballroom, past the expansive collection that makes his stomach twist. This door is not made of gleaming cherry, but of heavy, common oak. It has a rusted, aged lock around its handle.

She exhales, and her voice is below a whisper, barely heard, “Now.”

He lets go of her hand only long enough to bring his own together in a clap, and the candles in the display go out. The gilded windows are blocked of their starlight. The handful of guards in the room give out startled cries, but Aleksander ignores them in favor of focusing on Alina. He concentrates, bending the shadows away from her fingers as she works her needle-like lock picks into the tumbler. He hears the snap of the lock swinging open just as he hears a soldier cry out from the darkness.

“It must be the Grisha!”

Alina sends him an irritated look, before she walks through the door. He follows close behind her.

The door shuts. And the darkness dissolves with it, leaving some startled guards to desperately count the eggs, making sure none are missing from their stands. Because Grisha are not only murderers, it is well known that they are thieves, too.

\--

She leads him into a storage room.

“We don’t have a lot of time,” Alina says under her breath, walking straight for a back wall. It’s lined with dusty old tomes, cobwebbed and forgotten.

Except for a row on the bottom, where the spider threads are broken over a set of leather-bound journals.

A dozen of them. Aleksander breathes in slowly.

Alina undoes the cloak around her shoulders, throwing it on the floor. Without preamble, she starts to put the journals on the fabric. “They’ll be hard to carry out, but if we tie them in a bundle-“

He watches, numb, as she places more and more journals on the ground. As her hair falls out of its tie. They are, undeniably, Morozova’s. And she’s just helped him secure his future.

“Darkling!” She snaps, and her voice makes him drop to a knee beside her. Silently, he waits for her to put the last journal down before he ties the corners of the cloak together.

He leans over, close enough that his lips graze the shell of her ear. And he whispers, “Thank you.”

Alina gives him a small smile, “Thank me when we’re out of the palace.”

The door to the storage room swings open. Alina quickly wraps her arms around him, and with a flash of gold they vanish just before a guard inspects the room. The guard looks down the dusty, neglected shelves with barely a head turn, before he leaves and closes the door behind him.

She sighs in relief and drops her arms, “We’ll have to stay here a few more hours. The egg gallery is probably crawling with patrol.”

Aleksander nods, eyes drifting towards the black bundle between their knees.

A few hours is nothing.

\--

They move again when the sun starts to peak through the light of the narrow window at the top of the room. It takes a few moments, to situate the bulk of the journals, but eventually a solution is reached with Aleksander holding the bundle, and Alina holding on to the exposed skin of his arm. It takes almost double the length of time to cross the expanse of the hall.

They reach the hall with the suits of armor, and at the end there’s a group of guards approaching from the opposite direction. In the middle of the squad, there’s a man in an overcoat, the color of deep plum, wearing black boots that shine. A nobleman.

Alina tenses beside him, but Aleksander guides them to the side of the hall. They press against it, waiting for them to pass. The bundle is heavy, and awkwardly carried, and Aleksander watches intensely as a corner begins to spread apart.

The guards pass.

The nobleman passes.

And, just as the rear of the envoy goes to turn the corner, the bundle tears apart and Morozova’s journals spill onto the floor.

They land in dull thuds on the plush carpet, but the sound is enough to catch the attention of the last guard. He turns, eyes widening in surprise at seeing a stack of journals where there was previously nothing.

“Halt,” the guard states, turning and walking towards them.

“Darkling…” Alina warns, but it’s too late. He sees what needs to be done as clearly as he would see a line in the sand.

She tries to grab him, but it’s too late, and Aleksander slips out of her reach. He raises his arm, and draws it down.

The guard has enough time to give a choked surprise at Aleksander’s sudden appearance, before the top half of his body falls over the bottom half in a pile on the floor. There’s one, heavy second of inaction, before the rest of the guards rush him.

He moves, hand drawing down again and again, as more guards cry out before they hit the floor. His attention is focused only on the men in uniform, the soldiers. He fights furiously, eyes never leaving the blades of their swords.

Aleksander doesn’t see that the nobleman is armed, too. Doesn’t see that he is drawing a dagger and coming ferociously at his back.

Alina does.

A lightning flash of golden light bursts in the hall. Aleksander turns just in time to see a diagonal line split the nobleman in half. From the purple shoulder of his coat to the top of his gleaming black boot. His arm, still gripping the dagger, brushes against Aleksander’s chest lightly before it falls to the ground.

In front of him, Alina slowly draws her arm down. Her eyes are wide in horror but her mouth is pressed into a firm line.  She’s pale.

“We…” she gives a shaking breath. Her eyes don’t move from the demolished bodies that surround them. “We need to-“

Aleksander steps over the nobleman’s body, and cups her face in between his hands, forcing her to look at him and not the ground. “Alina.”

She swallows.

“Grab the journals.”

Alina closes her eyes, and nods.

\--

They manage to leave Pravdovret without further incident.

 

**xii.**

The nobleman Alina murdered was named Count Alexander “Sasha” Krasavet. He was a beloved cousin to the Queen, on holiday at the Winter Palace to write his memoirs.

His death at the hands of a Grisha changes things. 


	6. The Second Life: The Heretic (part iv)

**xiii.**

They return to Alina’s house after the murders. 

She is silent as Ivan makes them both tea, a heavy question in his eyes and a frown on his lips as he looks at the journals in Aleksander’s hands. Her face is pale as she eats supper, and when she is finished she retreats back into her room like a ghost fading into the walls.

“What did you do,” Ivan spits out as soon as her bedroom door shuts.

Aleksander stares at the journals. He trails his fingers over the bindings, in far better condition than the one in the chest. He closes his eyes, and behind them sees guards falling. Sees Alina splitting the nobleman in half.

The answer is so very, very clear.

“What was necessary.”

\--

Ivan doesn’t speak to him for three days. Alina doesn’t speak to anyone for two.

\--

Word gets out, as it often does. The Queen’s cousin has been murdered by a Grisha. A serial killer. And the streets of Kribirsk need changing. Curfew becomes mandatory—no one is to walk alone after it gets dark.

Aleksander sits near the front window of Alina’s house, and every day he watches the same two men in the same grey coats walk by at the same time. As mechanical and expected as gears in a clock.

Any Grisha practicing their craft are to be killed on sight. It seems that an assassination has exhausted the Queen’s patience with due process of the law.

\--

One morning, about a week after the death of Count Krasavet, there’s a knock on the door. Alina goes to answer it, before Ivan shakes his head and gets it first.

It’s one of the men in grey. He is heavyset, with a curling brown mustache breaking up the gelatinous mass of his face.

“Mr. Morevna?” He asks, tipping his head, “Might I come in.”

“Who are you,” Ivan says flatly.

The man in grey clears his throat, “I am with the Queen’s guard.”

Ivan’s eyes narrow, “What division.”

The man’s jaw becomes solid in spite of its lack of definition, “Internal.”

The _Corporalki_ ’s fingers grip tightly onto the door frame, “I believe my wife already paid you a visit. She came home with a black eye for it.”

“Mr. Morevna-“

Alina sighs, not looking away from the window. She has been staring out the window more and more, since the Winter Palace. “Let him in, Ivan.”

Aleksander watches carefully over the top of the journal he is reading. Ivan steps aside with a rigid, unhappy move. And the man in grey enters. He stares at Alina in a way that speaks of familiarity, and not of the pleasant kind.

“Mrs. Morevna,” he greets in a clipped tone.

Alina turns away from the window long enough to give him a barely repressed sneer,

“Dumanovsky.”

“Are you enjoying your holiday.”

Her eyes trail over him, and Aleksander is struck by how much she resembles her sister when her chin tilts up, “Why don’t you tell me. It seems as though you have nothing better to do than watch it.”

His mustache twitches. “Might I ask you some questions.”

“I’d rather you do that than put me in chains.”

Dumanovsky sits, and suddenly his attention is not on Alina at all, but on him. Aleksander keeps his face cool, a mask he has perfected over the decades.

“And who is this.”

“My cousin.”

“How long has he been staying here?”

“Two months.”

“And are you new to Kribirsk?”

Aleksander keeps his posture straight, and effortlessly recalls the lies he has told, “Yes. I have a painting apprenticeship in Os Alta.”

“Really, with who?”

“Boris Uvarov.”

“I’ve never heard of him.”

“He’s quite famous.”

Dumanovsky frowns, looking at Ivan, who still stands by the door. Waiting to shove this man out of it. “And you’re fine with hosting your wife’s…cousin for months?”

The _Corporalki_ grunts.

“Well, Mr.-?”

Lies have always come easier from him than truths, and he remembers Zoya rambling about her family on one of their numerous walks to the theatre, “Anton Nazyalensky.”

He notices that Dumanovsky writes the name down. He wets the end of his pencil on his tongue before he jots down another line, “Unfortunate timing for a study. Right as all this renegade Grisha misfortune starts.”

“Is speculation how you conduct all your searches, Dumanovsky?” Alina mutters from her place at the window.

The big man’s nose wrinkles, “We have been interviewing the other guards who were on duty the night of your escape, Morevna. All describe the prisoner as having dark hair-“

“That is already everyone in this room. Including yourself, Inspector,” Ivan grumbles.

Aleksander sends him a curious look, surprised Ivan is speaking up for him. The larger man ignores it.

Dumanovsky scowls, “I imagine if I asked about anything unusual happening in the neighborhood…”

“Nothing is different,” Ivan spits, making a gesture towards the door and not even bothering to pretend that the Inspector’s presence is wanted, “Aside from the new vultures circling around my house.”

The Inspector’s mustache twitches once more, and he looks between the three occupants. Alina still stares out the window, Ivan still points towards the door, and Aleksander keeps his fingers wrapped tightly around the spine of the journal. Finally, Dumanovsky scowls and

He points at Aleksander with the tip of his pencil, “Should you stay in Kribirsk, you will need to file the necessary residence papers. They are now mandatory.”

“Out!” Ivan barks.

Dumanovsky sends the doctor a poisonous look, but his considerable mass finally shifts itself out the doorframe with one parting call.

“Behave yourself, Mrs. Morevna.”

Her husband slams the door in his face, then locks it.

\--

“You protected me,” Aleksander says warily at dinner. He, better than most, understands that protection has a cost.

Ivan bites harshly into his roll, and corrects him while baring his teeth, “I protected my home.”

 

**xiv.**

Zoya comes over for tea two days later. Thankfully, her husband does not accompany her.

“Congratulations,” she says between delicate sips of keemun, “You’ve made things terrible. And over some dirty books, besides.”

Her stay is longer than necessary, but Alina speaks more to her sister than she has to anyone else in the house. Even if it is only to roll her eyes or groan. Zoya, Aleksander notices with a cold sort of calculation, knows exactly what to say to merit such responses from her.

During tea, it is decided that sessions at the theatre are to be temporarily disbanded. The Queen’s guard needs a culprit apprehended and until then, Kribirsk is not a place for Grisha. Secret ones or not.

\--

He takes this newly found free time to read. Morozova’s journals are extensive, disjointed, and difficult to follow in most areas, but one term repeats itself, over and over again:

_Merzost._

\--

Ivan takes him to fill out residency papers at the court house, because Alina is still not permitted within the walls of Pravdovret. None of the guards greet either man, not even the big one with a red beard.

\--

After a month of being on house arrest, without being officially placed on house arrest, Alina begins to join him in the basement. Together, they read the journals in silence. In them, he sees the notes of a man who straddled the line between genius and madness, but he reads and also sees opportunity.

Alina must notice the same things, for she searches a few journals over and over again, looking for the one thing that will tie everything together.

He wonders how long it will take her to realize that the one thing has been in front of her all along.

It’s the two of them.

\--

“It’s like waiting to jump off a cliff.”

Aleksander’s head snaps up from his reading, “What?”

Alina does not look away from her own, finger absently twirling a strand of hair, “Sitting here. Reading these. It’s only a matter of time before something happens, before they’re actively tearing people out from their homes and onto pyres.” She exhales, “…I should have never killed the noble.”

He looks at the journal in her hands. It is one that talks about amplifiers. He taps his finger against the table, “Someone would have killed a noble eventually.”

She shakes her head, “What are we going to do, darkling?”

Aleksander takes a few moments to decide, “We wait.”

“And then?”

“…and then we make it worse.”

He does not see Alina trail her fingers over the word _merzost,_ written again and again in a scrawled ink. Does not see her close her eyes or mouth _Saints_.

“…Worse,” she echoes, softly.

\--

He overhears them, one night. They must be standing directly above his bed, for their voices carry down through the floorboards.

“I want you to stop reading those things.”

“I want to stop reading them too, but it’s what we need-“

“And how do you know that?”

A heavy sigh, “Ivan-“

“No, Alina. _How do you know that_.”

“I just do.”

“Nothing good has come from him.”

A pause. Aleksander frowns until he hears her voice again.

“We don’t need good anymore, Ivan.”

A slam. Like someone’s fist against a table or wall. “ _You’d be executed._ ”

“Only if-“

“No! It won’t be Zoya. Or me. It will be the one who is _different,_ and your dark cousin will slip away like an eel when someone needs to be held accountable.”

Aleksander’s jaw clenches. But then Alina speaks again, and her voice is soft.

“It would be worth it.”

“Don’t.”

“If we have children-“

“I don’t have children! I have a wife _. That_ is my family!”

It’s quiet.

“I want things to be different. For us.”

He hears Ivan’s heavy footsteps cross the room above him, and then stop, “You can’t have difference without death _._ ”

“I can try.”

“I don’t want you to.”

“Someone needs to be willing to do something about it. And I’m the Sun Summoner.”

The words hang, until Ivan sighs. The heavy footsteps sound again, growing softer and softer until the noise is punctuated by an opening door.

“I didn’t marry a martyr, _malen’kaya osel._ ”

Another footfall, and then the door closes.

\--

The next morning, Alina is still asleep in one of the armchairs.

\--

Another month passes. And Aleksander begins to practice the new theories Ilya Morozova has given him in the dark.

…There is a way to enter her thoughts. To use the connection between them with other, intriguing methods.

But he sets those theories aside. Now, he can only see the use of that particular power driving her away. And he needs her close.

\--

Winter goes into spring. And with spring into summer, it is a festival of all things that breaks up the heaviness in the air.

 

**xv.**

One morning Aleksander wakes up to the sound of laughter. It’s quiet, almost muted, but he hears it all the same and it makes his eyebrows furrow. He doesn’t think there’s been laughter in this house before.

He dresses, and goes up the stairs.

The smell of something sweet hits him first, then the sight that is too strange to ignore.

Ivan sits in front of the fire with an iron pan, flipping its golden brown contents every so often. To his side, Alina makes what smells like strong coffee. They are smiling at each other as they do so—the unguarded, dangerous sort of smile that speaks of weakness. Aleksander watches them, watching each other, and feels something tighten and coil within him.

Alina notices him first.

“Darkling,” she says, and he watches that smile leave her lips in small, infinitesimal movements. Watches warmth bleed from her face like heat from old coals. His fingers curl into his palms.

“Alina.”

Ivan doesn’t look away from the fire, or what he’s making. But Aleksander sees his shoulders tense.

Once again, he’s made to feel the part of intruder.

Alina grabs a plate and the pot of coffee, and walks over to the table, “Breakfast.”

She sets three places.

Ivan gracelessly slides what smells like cakes onto the table before going back to the hearth. Aleksander looks at them. They’re sweet, with real flour and sugar and butter. And far richer than the meals of coarse bread and water he is used to being served.

“What’s the occasion.”

Ivan snorts. Alina gives a half-grin as she puts three of the breakfast cakes onto Aleksander’s plate, then her own, then her husband’s.

“It’s the festival tonight.”

“Festival?”

She nods as she pours coffee. It’s rich and dark. “You should go. It’d be good, for all of us to get out of the house.”

Ivan shoots her a glare. Alina pretends she doesn’t see it as she drinks from her own mug (it’s not the surviving misshapen one).  Aleksander watches her face as she pours syrup over her plate.

And nods.

The cake is sweet, but Aleksander can’t bring himself to finish it when Ivan kisses her before taking a seat at the table.

\--

Ivan goes to work. They read the journals. And when night comes, Aleksander wears his nicer kosovorotka shirt, and they leave together for the main square of Kribirsk.

\--

Alina wears a dress. It is dark blue, with gold edgings around the cuffs and hems. And she looks like _more._ More than a guard. More than the wife of a _Corporalki._ More than someone pretending to be satisfied with an average life in an average home.

And he can’t help but think of her in the black of his old cloak, frayed and worn from travel. But his.

\--

When they arrive near the square, he’s…surprised.

Music fills the streets of Kribirsk for the first time since he has arrived to this city. The warmth of the summer night is compounded by the heat radiating from the hundreds of bodies that crowd it, most dressed in shades of red or orange or even gold. The sound of the drums is joined by the stomping and clapping of the people, creating an echo that doesn’t quite leave. He knows the song, without ever having heard it before.

For once, Kribirsk is not a place of bleakness or cold or paranoia, but…happy. Alive.

And she’s smiling again. It’s worn, and brittle-thin, but there all the same.

“What is this for?” Aleksander finally manages to ask his companion, and Alina blinks at the question.

“You don’t have the summer festival where you’re from?”

“No.”

She tilts her head, “It’s for the Firebird.”

He stops.

Alina continues, oblivious to the thinness of his lips or the narrowing of his eyes, “There’s a legend about the Firebird flying over Ravka, bringing the summer with his warmth.”

“Her.”

“What?”

Aleksander swallows, “The Firebird was once a woman.”

Alina raises an eyebrow, “They tell it differently in your village.”

He looks at the people—all wearing warm colors but bearing no feathers gathered from a valley. Nothing to show that they remember her, “Yes. They do.”

She slides her gaze forward as they continue to walk down the square, the sound of the music growing louder, “It’s really just an excuse to get drunk. Dance,” her nose wrinkles, “Fun things.”

Aleksander frowns, “With Ivan.”

“Yes, he likes the drinking part,” she tilts her chin up over the crowds’ heads, “His clinic is over there.”

He doesn’t bother to look, instead watching the swerving mass of people. Even those who are clearly peasants are dressed in fine clothes, embroidered with flowers and the sun and other images of warmth. Distaste fills his belly, and he follows Alina like a shadow as they navigate the square teeming with far too many people who don’t understand what the Firebird really is. What was once a street full of happy people becomes a monument to the loss of something from the past.

He grabs her wrist. Their powers sing together, and Alina looks over her shoulder with a frown.

“You’re getting ahead of me,” he explains, while hating that he needs to do so in order to touch her.

She shakes her head, but does not try to shake him off. Eventually they make it to the entrance of Ivan’s clinic, which frames the side of the square. It is a fine enough building, clearly receiving regular upkeep and inspections, but it does not scream of success. Average.

A _Corporalki_ Healer, pretending to be an _average_ doctor.

Said average doctor is waiting for them. Like the rest of the villagers, like Alina, he is wearing his better clothes. His shirt is a dark red in color, of finer linen than his usual, and Aleksander glares at the golden embroidery lining its collar and sleeves. Ivan does not spare Aleksander a second glance as he descends the stairs and pulls Alina into a passionate embrace at odds with his more surly nature. Aleksander’s hand drops from her skin when he does so. And Alina even laughs againas the _Corporalki_ picks her up around the waist and spins her in a quick circle.

“You’ll make me sick, oaf,” she protests through a smile as he kisses her boorishly on the cheek.

“Then you’ll be sick, _osel,_ ” he replies, moving to kiss her mouth-

Aleksander looks towards the crowd. His eyes rest on the band in the very middle of the square, surrounded by intertwining circles of dancers. He already wants to leave.

That feeling does not diminish when he sees the flash of pale blue silk coming towards them. Zoya, as always, is a hurricane wherever she walks, but Aleksander only stares at the man accompanying her.

Blue eyes. A far too easy smile. And the straight back of a soldier.

The butcher’s son has an arm over Zoya’s shoulder, though he walks almost a half a step behind his wife.

“Darkling,” the Squaller greets, “You look…” her large eyes travel from the toes of his black boots to the shoulders of his black-lined shirt, “Dour.”

Aleksander ignores her, his attention focused solely on the man who should not be alive. The butcher’s son gives a nod to Ivan and Alina, and keeps a smile on his face as he offers his hand to Aleksander.

“Zoya’s…cousin. Anton, right?” Aleksander does not extend his hand in return, “I’m Mal. We didn’t have a chance to talk the other night.”

He stares at the offending appendage until the butcher’s son retracts it.

Aleksander hears Ivan snort. It appears with two people, he and the _Corporalki_ are agreed.

Zoya only purses her painted lips, “Anton never learned _manners_ from our dear _Tetya_ Olga, you’ll have to excuse our _bratanik_ ,” she brushes a perfect curl over her shoulder, “Or don’t. He’s certainly not _my_ favorite cousin.”

Alina sighs, “Zoya…”

Her sister only smirks, and sends the same evaluating stare to her younger sister that Aleksander had been subjected to, “…You’ve made an effort,” she finally permits.

Ivan does not let go of Alina’s waist, “One I don’t want to waste on our anniversary. Let’s go,” he orders, and Alina rolls her eyes before the bigger man grabs her hand and starts moving them towards the dancers.

“Anniversary,” Aleksander repeats. It is one thing to understand that Alina has a husband, another to picture her getting married. He watches her become a smaller and smaller figure in the crowd.

Zoya gives an airy chuckle, “I don’t blame you for not remembering her wedding, cousin. It was hardly a traditional event. Not even a week outside of my own.”

Aleksander looks at the butcher’s son carefully. The smile does not leave his face, but there is a tightening at its corners.

“Alina’s never been traditional,” he says, and there is a strange heaviness to his words before he clears his throat and faces his wife, “Shall we join them?”

Zoya raises a dark brow, “Only if we stay far enough away. I don’t want my _sestrenka_ having to feel upstaged on her anniversary.”

The butcher’s son grins, before kissing her hand, “I can manage that.”

When they go to dance, he thinks about leaving. But leaving implies there’s no reason to stay, and as Aleksander watches Alina dance (a little awkwardly, a little out of step), he wants to believe there’s at least one left.

So he stays. And he waits, listening to the old songs that are traditionally sung during the summer festivals—the songs about the sun, weddings, and returning home after having been gone for too long.

\--

“She’s a difficult person to be in love with.”

Aleksander stops watching her long enough to look over his shoulder. There, of all people, stands the butcher’s son. And in his hands are two mugs. He offers one to him, which Aleksander accepts mostly out of shock, before taking a seat next to him on the bench. Like Aleksander, the butcher’s son watches Alina as she laughs. Unlike Aleksander, he smiles at the sight.

Aleksander scowls, smelling into his mug. It’s kvass. He drinks.

“I have a theory,” the butcher’s son begins, leaning back and slinging his arms on the backrest, “That you are not her cousin.”

Aleksander grinds his teeth, “Is that so.”

“I’ll admit, there’s a similarity of features between you and my wife, but…” the butcher’s son frowns, “Well. No cousin ought to look at another cousin that way, if you catch my meaning.”

“You know nothing about me.”

“No, but I like to think I know something about Alina.”

He has no desire to hear this _otkazat’sya_ speak about her. Aleksander feels something ugly form in his stomach as he looks into the crowd, at the married couple dancing far closer than most married couples would.

“I don’t care what you like to think about her.”

The butcher’s son rubs his chin thoughtfully, “Alright. But from one new cousin to another, I know that you’re wasting your time.”

“It’s mine to waste.”

“If you say so,” he feels the _otkazat’sya_ staring, though refuses to give him acknowledgment, “But she’s happy. He makes her happy, as much as I wish otherwise.”

“Because you’re in love with her.”

The _otkazat’sya_ tenses, “…Or because Ivan is an ass.”

“Or.”

“ _Or_.”

“Does your wife know.”

“She has met the man.”

“About Alina.”

The _otkazat’sya_ sends him an incredulous look, “For a new cousin, who is not really a cousin, you’re not shy about the loaded questions.”

Aleksander takes another drink.

He sighs, looking up at the sky, “Yes. She knows. It’s impossible to hide anything from Zoya.”

It’s the first thing from the man’s mouth that Aleksander actually believes.

The _otkazat’sya_ makes a distant smile, “I would’ve married her, I think. Once. Now,” he rolls his shoulders, “Now I am a lucky man, and Ivan’s luckier than you.”

His fingers tighten on the handle of the mug. And he doesn’t look away as Ivan bends down to kiss Alina at the end of the dance. Another song begins. It is, cruelly, an ode to the Firebird’s flames. She buries her fingers in the fabric of his shirt to pull him closer-

“Ivan is nothing.” Aleksander decides with resentful conviction, setting the kvass down. He is nothing, and Aleksander has been accommodating long enough.

“He makes her happy,” the _otkazat’sya_ says with warning, but it’s ignored. For Aleksander still does not care what he has to say.

He waits until Ivan goes to grab another vodka. Then he leaves the worthless butcher’s son without another word in order to make his way through the crowd. He only stops when he is directly in front of her.

Alina startles when she sees him, but then gives a hesitant smile. He notices that her cheeks are flushed and her eyes are glossy with drink.

“Enjoying yourself, darkling?”

“Not yet,” he answers honestly, “Dance with me.”

Alina’s smile fades, and she looks over his shoulder, no doubt searching for the _Corporalki._ “Ivan’ll be back-“

“He won’t care.”

She snorts, “You know he’ll care.”

He grabs her hand in his own. She frowns.

“Just one,” he promises.

His power calls to hers, and reluctantly she nods, “ _One_ ,” Alina sighs, shaking her head as the music begins once more and Aleksander places his other hand on her hip, “It’s my anniversary.”

He doesn’t care. He releases his hand to let it hover before hers. She matches it, and they start moving in small, half circles.

“I don’t know what to make of you,” Alina mutters, her cups making her words fall easily.

They switch hands.

“What do you want to make of me.”

“I think what I want with you is not going to make a difference.”

They switch hands once more.

“Tell me.”

Alina sighs. He can smell something sweet and alcoholic on her breath, “Don’t ruin my nice evening, darkling.”

“I have no intention of ruining anything for you, Alina.”

“Your intentions are always questionable at best.”

He hooks his arm around her waist and draws her closer. She scowls.

“ _This,_ ” she mumbles, as his hand slides up in between her shoulders, “is what I mean.”

“It’s only a dance.”

“One that doesn’t need your hand on my back.”

“Does it bother you?”

“Yes.”

“Why.”

She only shakes her head, “I don’t understand you.”

“You could,” he brings her closer, her skin is warm against his fingers, “You could understand me better than anyone else.”

Alina sighs, and he feels her exhale against his neck. It sends a shiver down his spine despite himself, “Can you just let us be happy, for one night?”

Aleksander frowns, because he already knows ‘us’ does not include him, “What good is being happy, Alina, if you have to smother yourself for it?”

“I’m not smothering myself.”

“You’re not being what you could be. We both know it.”

Her stare darts up to his, and he sees her eyes narrow, “And if I was with you?”

Aleksander doesn’t smile, but he laces his fingers through hers, “Then we could have a different conversation.”

Alina shakes her head, “You don’t want me.”

“You don’t know what I want.”

“Yes, I do. You think you’re the first to be interested in my ability?” Her voice is dropped lower, presumably for secrecy’s sake. Instead it sounds almost husky, “ _I_ am not what you want. So please stop acting like it.”

His fingers grip hers tighter, and Aleksander feels stares trained on them. He doesn’t care. “I’ve waited over a hundred years for you, Alina.”

Her muscles tense under his hand, “That’s impossible.”

“Don’t you want to know how old I am?”

“No.”

“Because you’re afraid of the number.”

Alina shakes her head, vehemently, “Let’s talk about something else.”

His thumb drags over the back of her hand, and he dips his head, “If you want.”

She inhales, and he spins her. Silence exists between them as one dance seamlessly leads into another. Finally she speaks, and he notices that the pleasant buzz that accompanied her earlier is rapidly fading, “Is this your first Firebird festival?”

It’s a pathetic change of subject. But he’ll accept it. “…In a manner.”

“How vague of you.”

Aleksander presses his lips together, “I was told the story, once.”

“How did it go?”

He closes his eyes. Tries to imagine that night, so very long ago. Where the woman in his arms lay on her back and told him about a woman and a mountain under the stars. The memories do not line up, so instead he makes his own tale, “There was a girl.”

“There usually is.”

“She was talented, but lonely. Spent every day embroidering fine things into less fine clothes. Her work was beautiful, but people found her odd and so she was never short on business but always lacking company.”

“You are-“ he spins her again, “-a wonderful storyteller.”

His lips twitch at the sardonic compliment, but he presses on, “A boy…” he frowns, “She caught a boy’s attention, one day. Every day she wanted to learn his name, but he made her guess,” his fingers dance down the length of her spine, “So he said if she could finish the garments he brought to her in one night, he would give her a chance to learn his true name.”

“Did she do it.”

Aleksander hears his own voice grow softer, “Yes. Eventually.”

“What was it?”

“What was what.”

“The name.”

“Common,” Aleksander’s hand goes to her waist once more, “The boy appreciated her ability, far more than the village that thought her strange. He asked her to run away with him.”

“I’m guessing she didn’t.”

“Why would you guess that.”

“The village was her home, and a home keeps you.”

Aleksander’s hands feel cold, just for a moment, but he continues to direct Alina’s steps in the dance, “She wanted to,” his fingers grip hers tightly, and Alina’s eyes warily dart to where their hands are interlocked, “She wanted to run with him. But a villager held her back. A butcher’s son.”

“Does the Firebird come in at all.”

“Patience.”

Aleksander feels the stare trained on them grow in intensity, and when he spins Alina once more, he is not surprised to see Ivan standing to the side with Mal. Both of them frowning. He ignores them, “Eventually the girl ran to the mountains, fleeing the butcher’s son. The boy went after her.”

“And then?”

He closes his eyes, “The butcher’s son shoved her.”

“Not a good suitor, then.”

“No.”

Alina shakes her head, as one dance suddenly goes into four, and nudges him with her elbow as he brings her closer to him, “And the Firebird?”

“…when she fell, the boy turned her into it. And she drops feathers, to remind people that there can still be beauty in the world.”

“Depressing.”

“Yes.”

Alina forces a grin onto her face, “Here, we tell it differently.”

Because he enjoys the feel of her in his arms, he decides to indulge her, “And how does it go."

“It’s a bird made of fire. It flies.”

Aleksander feels the smallest of smiles manifest itself on his face, despite himself. And he cranes his neck down slightly, “Remarkable.”

“We Kribirskians are known for our poetics.”

“You’re not Kribirskian.”

She gives a sad, nearly mournful grin, “No. I suppose I’m not.”

He leans further down to kiss her, but a hand on his shoulder stops him. He turns. And Ivan doesn’t say anything, as he pushes him back and takes his place.

Aleksander watches as the _Corporalki_ moves Alina quickly away from him. She looks confused for a moment, before she waves a goodbye over her husband’s shoulder and follows his lead. Aleksander’s fingers clench into fists.

The married couple become swallowed by the other dancers in reds and oranges. And Aleksander decides that he has had his fill of anything related to the Firebird, and goes back to Alina’s home.

\--

They don’t return until the early hours of the morning, and Aleksander hears Alina tell her worthless husband that she loves him before the door to their bedroom slams closed.

\--

Three days after the Firebird festival, Harshaw’s brother Klim is seen by a neighbor igniting the hearth in his house. He left the window open. And he is arrested and executed one day after that.

 

**xvi.**

It is illegal to have funerals for criminals of the state. So Aleksander goes with Alina and Ivan to Harshaw’s home after they learn his brother’s fate.

He’s not there.

Instead, there’s rows and rows of candles. They cover the entire porch, and line every shelf inside Harshaw’s house. Hundreds of them. Carefully arranged and lit with singular, determined purpose: a memorial. With Kribirsk the way it is, a memorial is as condemning of an act of treason as Harshaw burning the building down. So Aleksander does not have to wonder why the owner of the house is absent.

He looks at the flames, and how their illumination break apart the night. The candles cast the walls of Harshaw’s house with the same muted glow of a cathedral. He watches them for what feels like hours. And when he looks away, he decides that it’s time for things to really, truly change.

\--

He’s reading Morozova’s third journal when it comes to him. Alina is asleep in her armchair, the rain hitting the window in soft pats, and Aleksander looks at the words hastily scribbled on the page.

_-what you fear, control._

His eyes drift to where Alina sleeps, circles around her eyes still dark.

The Queen has kept them controlled for far too long. And she has done so for a reason.

Aleksander crosses the room, and wakes Alina by pressing his fingers gently against her neck. She stirs at his touch, blinking sleep away from her eyes.

“What is it?” she mumbles, voice still raspy.

“Tell Zoya I’ll be at the theatre.”

Alina straightens further up in her seat and is suddenly very alert, “ _What_?”

His fingers move to cup her cheek. Her body tenses.

He smiles.

“It’s time to make it worse.”

\--

“You better have a damn good reason for this, darkling.” It’s been two days since Harshaw’s execution, and Zoya’s eyes are still red-rimmed.

The theatre that had almost been a home feels strangely barren without the pair of _Inferni._ He looks at the solemn, drawn faces of those gathered. He is pleasantly surprised to see everyone but Ivan, who is once more at work, and Adrik, who is ill, present.

He keeps his face a calm mask, “I do.”

“Then _please,_ enlighten us,” the Squaller hisses.

Aleksander walks patiently around the seated Grisha, taking stock of every non-verbal indicator they give him. They are tired, afraid. But resolute. Even Alina, sitting silently next to her sister, does not have a resistance to her. Her posture radiates weariness, but the sort that accompanies acceptance instead of anxiety.

They are his. Whether they realize it yet or not. The Queen, Ravka, has made them his.

“The executions have only begun,” he states calmly, knowing they all hear the truth in his words, “Not until the Queen has the Grisha who murdered her cousin-“

“And she’s not getting her,” Zoya bites out.

Alina’s eyes widen when her sister grabs firmly onto her hand, “Zoya-“

“Not now, idiot.” Zoya, like Aleksander, must know her sister’s tendency to make herself a martyr, for the words are strained.

His fist tightens at the realization that Zoya still thinks so lowly of him. And he takes a moment before continuing, “-and she has already killed two of our own. Because she is afraid.”

Fedyor cleans his glasses calmly, “The Queen has no reason to fear us. We aren’t the ones with an army.”

Aleksander’s lips twitch, “Then we create one.”

Zoya looks down with a troubled frown at his proposal. Her grip on Alina’s hand is still tight, knuckles strained.

Alina sends her sister a cautious look before she shakes her head, “Armies have soldiers.”

He nods, “Then we create those, too.”

Her chin tilts up, “You would have us become murderers.”

Aleksander says his next words as carefully as he can, “You already are a murderer, Alina.”

Her shoulders tense, but her eyes still speak of defiance, “My choices are not everyone’s. Neither are yours.”

He closes his eyes, “Very well.” When he opens them again, he addresses those sitting. He knows their answer before he speaks. “They arrest and execute us, for no other reason than being greater than them. They act out of fear. And I will no longer be hiding. You can leave now, or you can join me and fight against those who have oppressed us for far longer than we can remember.”

For a moment, no one speaks. Until the _Materialki,_ David, clears his throat.

“Actually…” he uses the heel of his hand to smooth down some errant strands of hair, “We’ve already planned on this.”

Aleksander frowns, “We?”

Zoya shifts her attention from the ground, “ _We_.”

Alina’s focus turns to her sister, “You never said anything.”

The Squaller rolls her eyes, “I wasn’t finished preparing yet. And you’d do something bullheaded and ruin things if you knew ahead of time.”

Aleksander’s words are careful, “…preparing.”

She smiles with perfect, white teeth, “Give me three days. And you’ll have your fighters,” her smile morphs slightly into a sneer, “Oh, and darkling?”

“...yes.”

“Cute speech.”

\--

They meet again in three days.

And what Zoya and David have for them are coats, made of a fabric that Aleksander has never seen before. It’s light, but as durable as any leathers. And they come in bright colors, blues and reds and purples. Clothes that are deliberately used to set the wearer apart.

He watches, as they put them on. And is surprised when Zoya places one into his hands. His fingers glide over the fabric.

“This is black.”

Zoya’s eyebrows arch, “Are you sure?” When he doesn’t respond to her facetious question, her lips purse, “…It’s not much of a resistance without a menacing figure leading it. And since black is too plain a color for me, you’ll have to do.”

Aleksander unfolds it, before looking to the other side of the stage. There, Alina is putting on a blue one, similar to her sister’s and Nadia’s and the other’s, “…Then her coat should be black as well.”

Zoya’s expression becomes dangerous, but her words are clear and level, “No. Alina is wearing blue,” her eyes narrow, “Like everyone else.”

And then he understands. The black coat is not a sign of respect in Zoya’s eyes. It’s a target.

“I am not easily killed.”

Her voice is sweet, “I’m counting on it, darkling.” She pauses, “Also, it’s not a coat."

“Then what is it.”

“For now, we’re calling them _kefta_ ,” Zoya turns slightly to look at their fellow Grisha as they finish dressing, “Coats are for soldiers. We’re something different.”

Aleksander watches as Alina ties a sash reluctantly around her waist.

And takes a slow breath, “Yes,” Alina looks up, and their eyes meet from across the room, “We are.”

\--

In the ruins of an abandoned theatre, they form their own army.

And with their own army, will one day come their own place.

But the price is not bloodless. And what begins with a man and a woman in a prison ends with a country broken.


	7. The Second Life: The Heretic (part v)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: This quick update brought to you by listening to Hozier on repeat.
> 
> THIS IS THE DARKEST TIMELINE. No happy ending. Also there’s death. Death everywhere. And the Darkling does some seriously shady shit. This is a really dark chapter and straddles the rating line between PG-13 + R. AGAIN REALLY DARK.
> 
> On that note, Heretic is finally over! Thanks for putting up with me writing what was essentially a story in a story :'D

**xvii.**

Their army begins with a slow march. For the first six months, they are discrete: they train, Alina breaks prisoners out using her invisibility, and Zoya uses her social connections for funding, and more bodies fill their ranks.

Their first public display is an accident.

One day, Alina, Aleksander, and Ivan are walking from the theatre when they see something different in the public square that they cross every day to return home. It is winter once more, and fat clumps of snow fall from the sky, swirling around the space where, just months ago, there had been a dance.

Instead there is now an execution block.

A makeshift hangman’s platform has been built, surrounded by men dressed in grey. Aleksander thinks he can make out the bulbous mass of Dumanovsky among them. They form a circle around one figure, dressed in a soiled linen shift, too thin for the bitter of Kribirskian winter. From a distance, it is hard to make out the prisoner’s features, but as they walk closer he can make out a few things.

The first is that her red hair is a shock of color in the grey streets of Kribirsk. The second is that her hands are bound at the wrist, and the third is that her eyes are covered with a blindfold.

 Ivan’s arm goes around Alina’s shoulders, “Executions are supposed to be done in Pravdovret,” he says tightly.

Alina is silent in return, but Aleksander watches her eyes land and stay on the condemned prisoner. He looks at her again, and then realizes what it is about the Grisha that has Alina so rigid.

The prisoner is a child. Thin, and small. She trembles as they push her up the stairs of the platform.

One of the men in grey unrolls a piece of parchment and shouts over the gathering crowd.

“As upon her Royal Highness’s decree, any practitioners of the small science are heretics, and therefore enemies of the state.” A guard jabs the hilt of his sword into the girl’s back when she slows in her step, but she doesn’t cry out, “With your death, and the committal of your undying soul to the Saints above, may your crimes by absolved.”

Aleksander’s lips press together as the small girl is led closer and closer to where the noose is. All the guards around her are grim-faced and unrelenting. They have to place a stepping block before her so her neck can reach the rope.

His anger surges in his chest. Aleksander looks at the guards, at the people of the square. And starts to count them.

While he is counting, he senses an abrupt movement to his left and turns.

“Don’t-!” Ivan shouts, and Aleksander has enough time to see the flash of a blue _kefta_ as Alina takes off in a dead sprint towards the platform.

Ivan goes after her, his face a mask of anger and horror. Spectators are shoved roughly to the side in frenzied movements, until they gradually part of their own accord.

Aleksander takes a deep breath, and keeps counting.

Twenty guards.

Dumanovsky puts a rope around the girl’s neck.

And he hears a pained, frustrated cry before a flash of golden light bursts forth from the crowd. The people scream, and Aleksander watches as Alina takes advantage of the confusion to shoulder her way up to the platform. A flash of red in the crowd is all he can make of Ivan, no doubt held back by people attempting to run.

Aleksander doesn’t run. He only stares as Alina does something incredibly foolish and brave.

She’s hardly an imposing figure, too pale and thin, but her bright blue _kefta_ and her straightened posture make her alluring. Alina takes a step onto the platform, and when she speaks she projects her voice well enough for everyone to hear.

“Let her go.”

Dumanovsky turns, and Aleksander can hear the sneer in his voice, “I’ll see you hang for this, Morevna. Stand down.”

“No.”

The girl, blindfolded in the middle of a catalyst, turns her head in confusion, as if trying to find her unexpected champion.

“ALINA!” Ivan’s voice tears from somewhere within the crowd, and Aleksander sees Alina’s step falter a little, but she keeps walking towards the redheaded child. Aleksander smiles.

“One last time, or I’ll kill you. Get that rope off of her.”

Dumanovsky scoffs, and raises his hand to signal to the executioner-

-and doesn’t get to finish the motion, as a flash of golden light is drawn in a diagonal line across his chest. Alina exhales, her arm still extended. And Dumanovsky lets out one last, wheezing groan before he sinks to his knees, half of his body rolling away once it connects with the platform.

The screams start in earnest, then.

Aleksander continues to only watch, transfixed, as Alina spins her arms in a circle, Cut after Cut emitting from her hands as guard after guard drops to the ground. They advance, but he notices a few stagger and fall to the ground before they reach her, hands clutching their chests and eyes rolling back into their heads.

He keeps counting.

Fifteen guards.

Alina screams in anger, drawing her hands together-

Twelve guards.

-a blur of red shoulders his way onto the platform and stretches out his hand-

Eight guards.

Aleksander calmly walks through the chaotic crowd, people running around him like water in a river parting for a stone.

Six guards.

He reaches the foot of the platform, and draws his hand down. The rope holding the noose is severed by a tendril of darkness, with the rest collapsing around the girl’s neck like a morbid necklace.

Golden light explodes once more.

…one guard.

Aleksander turns, and sees the lone survivor shaking at the foot of the steps. He’s young, eyes wide and horror blanching his face. His hands clutch onto his sword shakily, and Aleksander is amused to discover that the tip is pointed at his own chest.

“Do you know what we are.”

The guard looks at the black _kefta_ he wears, and darts a glance up at Alina and Ivan. They are standing, back to back, with arms still outstretched. They, too, are wearing _kefta._

He swallows, and nods.

“Go to your Queen in Os Alta,” Aleksander says quietly, stepping forward until the sword is pressed directly against his heart, “Tell her we have made our own army. And that she now has a choice. She can make a haven for Grisha, or-“ his cold, grey eyes look at the strewn bodies that surround them, “-we will take one.”

The guard shakes more violently, eyes widening, “Who are you?” He finally manages to choke out.

Aleksander raises his hands, and smiles at his own little, private joke, “The Darkling.”

He claps.

Darkness floods the square, and he parts the shadows to allow Ivan to scoop the Grisha girl up into his arms. Alina takes a breath, before she and her husband silently join him near the stairs.

\--

What happens next happens quickly. But it is not something they are unprepared for. Alina goes to her sister’s house, Aleksander packs their few belongings, and Ivan checks the child for injuries.

As quickly as the traveler he once was so very long ago, Aleksander and his soldiers move seamlessly from one life to another. From citizens to fugitives.

From the house in Kribirsk, to the abandoned cathedral of Pravdovret.

\--

The name of the child they rescue is Genya. She is eight years old.

And, like him, like Alina, she is unique. Aleksander watches as she hesitantly blends the metal from her irons with her skin, as the paleness of her complexion gathers a metallic hue. He has never seen anything like it before.

She follows Alina like a shadow.

\--

Zoya and her husband join them in the cathedral of Ilya Morozova three days later. The Squaller carries one bag, her husband carries several, and both look lost but desperately trying not to be.

Aleksander glares at the butcher’s son, “He’s _otkazat’sya._ ”

Zoya glares at him, “Are you sure that matters, darkling?”

“We can’t trust him.”

The Squaller snorts, tossing a curl over her shoulder, “You don’t want to have this conversation. Because of you my sister is a wanted fugitive of the state, our houses have been repossessed, and I had to leave behind four of my best outfits,” her eyes narrow dangerously, “And trust me when I say I favored my fox fur wrap _far_ more than I favor you at the moment.”

Aleksander’s jaw clenches, but before he can say anything, Zoya gives her one remaining bag to Ivan to carry and stalks down the hall to the lower levels, where monks once slept in dormitories.

The butcher’s son stays behind, and Aleksander has to take a breath to control his rage when he sees him talking to Alina, their voices hushed but no doubt angry. Their argument doesn’t stop until Genya walks out from behind the altar, wordlessly slipping her hand into Alina’s.

The butcher’s son looks at the child, then Alina, before he exhales and turns to follow his wife without another word.

\--

Over the next week, they arrive. Nadia and Adrik. Tamar and Tolya. Marie and Sergei. Other Grisha he has never met, but Grisha who stare at Alina with a look that could only be called _reverence._

One by one, in the heart of Pravdovret, they make the old cathedral theirs.

\--

The next month, David arrives with materials: cloth, steel, mirrors, and other metals. Trivial items, but dangerous ones under the hands of a _Materialki._ Genya follows him like a shadow as well, and eventually he makes her a small purple _kefta,_ and takes her on as an apprentice.

\--

A month after that, Ivan and Alina make Genya a Morevna. Unofficially, as they are fugitives and fugitives cannot adopt children.

Aleksander watches them, and feels something dark and cold lodge in his throat. Ivan is temporary, he reminds himself. Zoya is temporary. They are, ultimately, nothing beyond the constraints of their bodies.

But then he sees the butcher’s son, angry and out of place but still so very _alive,_ and wonders how much he believes his own words.

\--

They stop more executions. Eventually, more guards from Os Alta arrive in Kribirsk. But ten guards is just as useless as one in the face of his Cut. In the face of his and Alina’s combined powers.

Guards cannot make themselves invisible. Guards cannot swallow sound and light and air in darkness.

It is not until their twelfth rescue that they even suffer a casualty: during an escape, Adrik loses an arm to a soldier’s sword. But Ivan is skilled enough to staunch the loss of blood before it kills him.

\--

It’s late. Aleksander sits by himself in the darkness, staring at the likeness of Ilya Morozova from his place in the front pew. Their numbers have nearly tripled now, more and more refugee Grisha finding them in an attempt to reclaim their lives. More _kefta_ being made.

And a greater risk of exposure.

He folds his hands on his lap, and when he sees the halo of candlelight approaching, he tenses.

And relaxes, when he realizes that the light is from the sun and not a fire.

“Can’t sleep either?” Alina asks. She doesn’t look surprised to see him there.

 _He_ is surprised to see her. In the three months since they have occupied the cathedral and rescued the girl, Alina has kept a distance. He does not doubt her reluctance towards him is influenced by the presence of the butcher’s son.

Aleksander closes his eyes, “Sit.”

He’s even further surprised when she does, taking a place next to him on the pew. Her gaze follows his, resting on the base of the statue, “It’s hard to believe that was almost two years ago.”

He frowns, “What was two years ago?”

She nods across the room, “You kidnaping me.”

Aleksander gives a quiet hum of acknowledgement. In truth, he has forgotten most of that night, aside from the fact that it brought their destinies back together once more.

Alina purses her lips in thought, “I wanted to talk to you.”

He tries not to let his mind surrender to anticipation, but it does. It’s so easy, the way she makes him vulnerable to his own thoughts, “About?”

She closes her hand, the light goes out. The darkness of the cathedral feels both intimate and near sacrilegious, “We need to think bigger.”

Aleksander smiles, happy to see that her own concerns have followed his own. But he decides to see how far her ambitions reach before he agrees to them, “How.”

“We have too many to stay here. David says supplies will be increasingly difficult to get to feed and clothe everyone. Ivan’s stores are small. If an illness catches, it could mean catastrophe.”

“What do you propose.”

She sighs, and he notices her eyes are ringed with sleepless circles, “We have enough to take Pravdovret.”

He shifts, so he is facing her. In the darkness he can make out her features better than most, so he knows when she looks at him in turn. He brings his hand to her face. His fingers play with strands of her hair, and under his thumb he feels her pulse—slow and steady and comforting. Aleksander leans his head forward to touch her own.

“Then I will give you Pravdovret.”

Alina grabs his wrist, and he feels their powers reach out for each other before she lowers his hand back to his lap, “We’ll give the Grisha Pravdovret.”

\--

Two months later, they do.

It’s not a bloodless battle. When they go to claim the Winter Palace for their own, Stigg is killed by an archer’s arrow straight through his neck. He bleeds out before either Fedyor or Ivan can heal him.

But Aleksander personally kills ten soldiers with one Cut when he sees a palace guard stab Alina through her shoulder from behind. He carves his way to her, but her husband reaches her first. Ivan’s face is drawn and pale as he hovers his hand over his wife’s wounds and pours her blood back into her.

All Aleksander can do is draw the line of his Cut down the culprit’s body.

\--

Aleksander gives her the Queen’s personal quarters to recover in, and visits her every night even under Ivan’s condemning stare.

\--

He sends the captured nobility to Os Alta with Tamar and Tolya. Some of them are even still alive, as a token of good faith.

 

 **xviii.**  

A few weeks after the Grisha take the Winter Palace, the Queen sends an envoy.

Aleksander sends it back from the gates.

The Queen already knows his demands.

\--

Alina’s wounds have become infected.

She tosses and turns in her sleep, a heavy sweat on her brow. Aleksander watches from a distance as Zoya and the child grab her hands and Ivan heals her as best he can.

His stare more often than not rests between Ivan’s shoulder blades. He already knows if Alina’s condition worsens he will have no reservations about killing the _Corporalki._

A Healer who can’t heal is useless to him.

\--

He is walking through the palace when he sees Ivan drinking by himself in one of the numerous sitting rooms of the palace. His _kefta_ is off, crumpled over the divan beside him, and his fingers are wrapped around a glass of what Aleksander assumes is vodka, judging from the bottle on the end table.

He’s not sure why he stops, but he does. Aleksander frowns at the _Corporalki,_ who continues to stare unseeingly ahead, and doesn’t even acknowledge his presence.

Finally, he speaks, “What are you doing.”

Ivan blinks, then snorts once he recognizes his voice, “Oh, it’s _you_.”

He tips the rest of his glass back.

“You’re on duty.”

“Alina broke her fever this morning.”

Aleksander doesn’t feel relief easily. But at those words, it comes. “You should have told me sooner.”

Ivan sends him a dark look, “You’re in our rooms as often as I am. You’d find out for yourself soon enough.”

Aleksander looks at the man, his half empty bottle of vodka, and decides there are more important things to do with his time than deal with a drunk. He gives a small shake of his head, preparing to leave for Alina’s rooms, when her husband speaks again.

“You’re wasting your time.”

He stops. And wordlessly waits for an elaboration.

Ivan pours himself more alcohol. His hand is steady and his eyes are still clear, and it occurs to Aleksander that as fast as the _Corporalki_ can drink, his powers more than likely burn it away. He’s been healing Alina almost nonstop for a week now. And with the use of power comes the need for something to fuel it. After Ivan takes a sip, he speaks again.

“It’s been over two years. Stop pursuing my wife.”

Aleksander’s rage twists in his stomach. For a lowly _Corporalki_ to presume command over him is insult enough. To say…

His tone is cold, “No.”

Ivan straightens in his seat. Whatever he had been expecting, it was not that simple of a response, “What do you mean _no_.”

He doesn’t need to explain himself to this man. But for some, dark reason the compulsion is there. And he follows it. Because he, too, is tired of there being another man in her life, “Two years is nothing.”

The _Corporalki_ ’s eyes widen, as if caught between astonishment and fury. His fingers tighten on the glass, “You’re mad.”

“No.”

“We have a daughter. We’re a family. And there’s no room for you in it.”

Something colder still slides between Aleksander’s ribs. He takes a step closer, and Ivan stands. They stand at nearly an even height, and Aleksander makes sure to look straight into the _Corporalki_ ’s eyes as his words, level and careful, fall from his lips. He has been wanting to say this for so long now, and here, where Alina can’t hear or intervene or placate, seems appropriate enough.

“That _won’t matter_.”

Ivan’s hands make fists, “Of course it matters.”

He smiles. It is not a kind smile, “Do you know how old I am.”

Ivan snorts, “What does that-“

And Aleksander sees it register in quick, sudden movements. Ivan’s shoulders tense, his jaw juts out, his eyes widen further. Aleksander only inclines his head.

“How old am I, Ivan.”

Alina’s husband says nothing, only stares.

“You asked me once, what it meant if I control the shadows, while Alina controls the sun-“

“Shut up.”

He doesn’t. Aleksander keeps his voice as calm as possible. As if explaining things to a child, “You’re a Healer. You must know that a Grisha’s power can extend their lifespan,” his lips twist, “Your wife is very, _very_ powerful Ivan-“

“Enough-!”

“-and so am I,” Aleksander walks over and grabs Ivan’s arm, lets the power within him expand and swell. Ivan staggers back, but he keeps his grip firm, “Two years doesn’t matter. Two hundred years doesn’t matter. Because you will die. Your family will die. And she will be alone,” his grip tightens, “Except for me.”

He feels it painfully fast. A strange pulse in his chest, a shortness in his breath. A searing pain up the arm that is holding the _Corporalki._ Aleksander’s eyes dart to the arm he isn’t holding, and sees the hand outstretched. He gives a scoff of disbelief, as his heart constricts.

Ivan violently shrugs his hand off of him, taking a step back with his fingers slowly folding into his palm. With every movement, Aleksander sees more and more black spots across his vision. He falls to a knee.

“I guess power doesn’t mean everything,” Ivan barks through grit teeth, “Your heart stops just like everyone else’s, darkling.”

His throat feels tighter, harder to get air through. But Aleksander raises his arm-

“What’s going on?”

Aleksander sees Ivan’s head snap towards the door at the new voice of an intruder, and the Healer scowls, “Keep walking.”

“Alina’s asking for you.”

Ivan looks down at Aleksander, straight into his eyes, and speaks with promise, “This isn’t finished.”

His hand drops.

Aleksander breathes in, and hears the _Corporalki’s_ heavy boots cross the room.

After a moment, the intruder enters, and crouches beside Aleksander’s kneeling form.

“Are you alright?” Asks the butcher’s son.

He pushes himself into a stand, “Stay out of Grisha affairs, _otkazat’sya_.”

Aleksander sees the blue in the butcher’s son’s eyes grow dim, sees a frown that speaks of old frustration form on his lips, and leaves without another word.

\--

The _Corporalki_ has finally given him an excuse.

 

**xix.**

More Grisha come. News travels slowly through Ravka, but it’s only a matter of time before word reaches the surrounding villages of Kribirsk, and Grisha flee to the Winter Palace as discretely as they can. With them, comes news that Grisha are uprising in several other cities: that the Queen has riots and rebellions to deal with all over the country.

Aleksander wonders how long it will take word to reach Kerch.

\--

He finds the page by accident, but it unsettles him.

Tucked away in one of the last journals, is a half-torn page. What remains is scribbled out, written in frantic, desperate ink. He has David restore it for him, and the message is enough to be disturbing.

It speaks, once more, of _merzost._ But this time, it speaks of using it to bring life to the things that lack it. To the dead.

To the shadows.

Aleksander reads, and possibilities unfold like old scraps of parchment in his mind.

\--

Alina is able to walk around one week after her injuries.

She looks drawn, pale, and Aleksander keeps pace with her as she makes her daily lap around the palace gardens.

“How are you feeling.”

She sends him an indecipherable look, and shrugs deeper in to the warmth of her _kefta,_ “Another three days, and I should be able to fight again.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Alina snorts, “That’s the answer you’re getting.”

They walk in companionable silence, until he notices her bite down on her lower lip for the third time.

“What is it?”

She takes a deep breath, still looking straight ahead, “…what did you say to Ivan.”

He keeps his face a mask, “I’ve hardly seen him since we’ve taken the palace. Why?”

Alina gives a small shake of her head, “He’s. Been different. Agitated. He’s barely spoken to me since I woke up.”

Aleksander fights the urge to smile, “Things are changing.”

She jams her hands into her pockets, and they say nothing else for the remainder of her walk.

\--

Within the heart of Pravdovret, they are safe. The walls that stood for so long to keep people out now serve as a barricade between them and the rest of Ravka.

But it’s not enough. More Grisha refugees fill the halls, and their stores dwindle.

The Queen has not sent another envoy. And that means it is time to take Kribirsk.

\--

When he draws up his plans for the attack, he puts Ivan on the front line. He’s proven to no longer be trustworthy, and is therefore now expendable.  


\--

Aleksander is walking by the Queen’s quarters when he, once again, hears a conversation he is not meant to hear. Alina’s voice echoes throughout the polished, wooden halls of the wing:

“I’m going with you.”

Her husband’s is lower. Quieter, “You’re still recovering. Don’t be an idiot, _osel._ ”

“I’m not letting you go against the Queen’s army without me!”

A snort, “We’re both soldiers, aren’t we? We’re all _his_ soldiers.”

“We’re Grisha’s army-“

“I don’t see _Grisha_ giving the assignments.”

A tense, silent pause. Aleksander leans against the wall outside of their doorway.

“Then don’t accept his orders.”

Aleksander’s jaw clenches at hearing such an insubordinate statement from her. Of all of them, _she_ is supposed to be the one who most understands what he is trying to do.

Ivan’s next question is unexpected, “How old are you, Alina.”

“-what?”

“I never asked because I never cared before. But I care now.”

“You know I don’t have a birthday.”

“Guess. I’m twenty seven.”

Alina takes a breath, “I don’t know. Twenty two? Twenty three? Somewhere close to that. Why?”

“I wanted to know, before I leave.”

“You make it sound like you don’t plan on coming back.”

“It’s war. One time I won’t.”

“Ivan…”

“Stay home _._ Rest. Make sure Genya stops playing with poisons.”

“Don’t get killed, you idiot,” Alina whispers.

“That is supposed to be my line, _malen’kaya osel._ ”

Aleksander hears the sound of a kiss. And he walks away with his fists clenched.

\--

After five days of fighting, their army takes half of Kribirsk.  They lose Fedyor and Marie. But Ivan somehow manages to survive.

\--

Alina makes her full recovery the day before the Queen sends another envoy.

This one is waving a light blue flag: the symbol for negotiations.

\--

He, Alina, and Zoya meet with the Queen’s messenger.

She will agree to abolish the death penalty for Grisha in Ravka, with conditions:

One, a mandatory cease-fire for Grisha all over the country and relinquishment of any conquered lands or property.

Two, that all Grisha serve a mandatory conscription period in the Queen’s army.

And three:

The head of the Grisha who murdered her cousin.

 

**xx.**

Two days after the meeting, Alina comes to his rooms.

It’s late. She doesn’t knock. And Aleksander turns from where he is reading to see her standing, still fully dressed in her _kefta,_ with her chin tilted up. He already knows what she’s about to say. And he already knows it’s not an acceptable option.

“I’ll surrender.”

“No.”

She blinks, “What do you mean _no_.”

He closes the book he is reading, and stands. Unlike Alina, he is dressed for sleep: a simple nightshirt and trousers. “You aren’t giving yourself to the Queen.”

“People are dying.”

“Then let them die.”

Her face twists in shock, “You can’t mean that.”

“You’re worth more to me than them.”

“This isn’t about what _you_ want.”

He grabs her exposed wrist. She tenses, but he only looks down at their hands as he moves to intertwine their fingers, “…Wanting, is something I am well-acquainted with.”

Alina snatches her hand back, “Then do it a little more. Because I’m turning myself in when the envoy returns in two days.”

His now empty fingers clench, “No. You’re not.”

“It’s not your decision.”

The pieces slide slowly into place in his mind. He knows what he needs to do. Knows what he needs to say to save Alina from herself. It is not something he would usually lower himself to, but once more, she forces his hand.

“If you are executed, then who will protect Genya.”

She stills.

“Or Zoya. Or Ivan. Or the _otkazat’sya._ ”

Alina’s words are drops of acid falling from her tongue, “Are you threatening me.”

He keeps his own careful, calm. “No. Only reminding you there is more at stake than your personal desire for heroics.”

“She will keep sending soldiers until she has the Count’s killer.”

“Let her. We have our own army.”

Alina shakes her head, “I won’t let you keep doing this.”

“What, Alina, are you accusing me of?”

She inhales, “This is supposed to be temporary. When does it end for you.”

“When Grisha are full citizens. As we agreed when we started this,” he steps towards her, “This is how the world is changed, Alina. With blood. And I need you to be beside me for it.”

“Because of my power.”

If it comforts her to think so… “Yes.”

Her shoulders sag. And she turns away from him, towards the door, “Two days, darkling. If you want to keep me, come up with something else to appease the Queen before then.”

\--

He does.

\--

The conversation with Sergei is simple. The death of Marie has left him vulnerable, and the past week has seen the Heartrender shaken and weak. Impressionable.

It doesn’t take much convincing to have him realize how important Alina’s survival is to the Grisha. How crucial it is that the Queen has a figure to blame. How his surrender to the Royal Palace can make things safe again. That the Queen will most likely spare his life for coming forward. How he can go back to his home, in Os Alta, instead of staying holed away in the cold of Kribirsk. That mercy can exist, if he helps create it.

\--

The day the Queen’s envoy returns for the head of her cousin’s killer, Sergei sneaks into Alina’s room and lowers her heart rate until she passes out.

He then walks, uninterrupted, to the gates of the Winter Palace. Where he surrenders himself to the Royal guards.

The only witness to either action is Alina’s husband. Who woke up beside her, when he sensed her pulse slow in his sleep.

\--

Sergei is executed three days later. Privately. According to gossip, his last word is “safe.”

\--

As agreed by their treaty, the Grisha return the Winter Palace and Pravodovret to the Queen. The Queen, in turn, removes the death penalty and grants citizenship to Grisha. Their homes are returned to them. Their signatures are written on conscription papers.

Most are celebrating, though it will eventually prove to be short-lived. Around Kribirsk, Grisha meet in pubs, in stores, in squares. Lives once so guarded and private tentatively unveil themselves.

Aleksander goes back to Alina’s house. But no one is there. He has not seen her since the night she came to his rooms.

\--

Agents of the Queen almost immediately start asking questions. Who was in charge of the rebellion. Who was the Darkling. Where does he live. Who were the other powerful Grisha.

Aleksander has not survived so long by being foolish, and makes his home in the cathedral once more. There, he waits. For the anger to die. For the tentative citizenship to stabilize. For Alina to come for him.

But it’s not her that opens the door three nights after they leave the palace.

It’s her husband.

\--

Ivan has all the grace and subtlety of a sledgehammer as he breaks into the cathedral, lantern in his hand.

“You gave them Sergei,” he spits into the darkness.

Aleksander stands slowly from his place on the second floor. He walks to the railing, and looks down. Ivan is sneering, his features almost beastly in the glow of the light, “Yes,” he admits, then looks past Ivan, to the doors.

“Alina’s not here,” Ivan snarls.

Aleksander gives his attention back to the _Corporalki,_ “Then what do you want.”

“I want to know how many more of us you’ve sacrificed.”

“Sergei died for Alina. You should be grateful.”

“My wife thinks it’s her fault. I’m not grateful to you for anything.”

He frowns, walking towards the stairs, “You wanted a haven.”

“Yes,” he grits through clenched teeth, “Just not yours.”

Aleksander reaches the bottom of the steps. From here, he can see that Ivan’s eyes are nearly as dark as Alina’s. That his throat and chin are unshaven. His stare is bloodshot. Aleksander is looking at a haunted man.

“I gave you what you wanted, didn’t I, _Corporalki_? I gave you the right to wear red outside. I protected your home-“

“You made us all murderers, and you’ve made Alina afraid of herself,” Ivan sets down his light, “You think that this is what we want? Already they’re pressing children into the military. Genya was conscripted yesterday-“

Aleksander’s fingers clench, “Why didn’t you find me.”

“-because nothing you do goes beyond what you want!” Ivan shakes his head, “You would’ve let anyone die if it meant getting closer to it.” His dark eyes are bright, “You think I didn’t notice how often I was assigned suicide missions, darkling? How Mal occasionally had his rations forgotten? How clearly you divided that line between expendable and useful?”

“I am not accountable to you,” Aleksander says quietly. His mind drifts back to their altercation weeks ago. When Ivan had tried to stop his heart. “Everything I’ve done, I have done to save those like us.”

“Except I’m not like you, am I?” Ivan hisses, walking closer. His shirt is wrinkled, bunched up around his elbows, “And you’re not one of us.”

He keeps himself under control, and his eyes watch Ivan’s hands carefully, waiting for them to curl into claws and grab at his heart, “I am a Grisha.” He says flatly, “And a Ravkan.”

“You’re a manipulator and a liar,” Ivan shakes his head, “And I’m not letting you take control of the army again.”

“What makes you think I want the army.”

“Tell me you don’t.”

“If I did…” the shadows around them curl and twist. Ivan’s eyes dart to them and his nostrils flare, “It’s only to protect Grisha from the Queen. Children like Genya.”

“I know men like you, darkling. You’d substitute one rule for another.” He meets his eyes, “Leave Kribirsk. Tonight. And don’t come back.”

Aleksander almost laughs. After the months of fighting, the years of training them to fight, and finally finding Alina once again, this man expects him to abandon it all. To walk away from a sanctuary he created.

“This is my place.”

“There is no place for you here.”

Aleksander smiles. The shadows twist and swell. “Then I’ll make one.” And, because he knows it will tip this haunted, delusional man over the edge, he presses, “And Alina will make it with me.”

Ivan raises his hands, but tonight he does not get the opportunity to grab for his heart. Because tonight Ivan does not have the shield of his wife’s potential hatred guarding him. Aleksander draws his arm up, and thinks of this man’s fist connecting with his jaw, of his attack on him a few months ago, of his constant interruptions, of his possessiveness, and draws it back down with little reservation.

The shadows respond, hone into an edge, and Cut.

Aleksander feels a twinge of pain in his chest, like the brush of fingers, but it disappears as Ivan drops to his knees in front of him. His outstretched hand falls limp to his side, and his brown eyes glare hatred at Aleksander before the _Corporalki_ falls, face-down, against the ground.

Aleksander moves to stand over him, over the puddle of red blood that is blooming underneath his body.

It seems that his heart, too, stops just like everyone else’s.

\--

In Ivan’s pocket, there is a crumpled handkerchief: once white, now blood-stained, with a small songbird stitched in the corner. Aleksander runs his fingers over it for a few moments, before he tucks it back into Ivan’s _kefta._

He disposes the corpse in a barrel, which is pushed out into the sea.

\--

Two weeks after he kills her husband in self-defense, Alina returns back to their home. He hasn’t seen her, but he knows she’s there because lights are once more in the window when he walks by.

\--

It takes two more weeks for the Queen’s guard to retreat to Os Alta. They will be back the next spring for new recruits.

\--

One week after that, Aleksander once more goes to her door. And knocks.

 

**xxi.**

She thinks her husband has left her.

It’s never something Alina explicitly says, but she walks from room to room like a ghost once more. Her eyes always go to a window or door first, before anything else in the house. She watches like she expects him to come back.

It’s Genya, quiet and sad, who tells Aleksander once Alina is out working in the garden. Genya tells him that Ivan stormed off one night and never came home. That it’s been almost a month. That they had argued before he left, and that she couldn’t remember what it was exactly about, but she knows they talked about the Queen’s army, and Sergei, and Genya’s conscription papers. And that Ivan had said something about Alina’s age before he vanished.

Aleksander decides not to correct these assumptions.

\--

Alina gives him the room in the basement once more. Every day she looks sicker, and it is no surprise to Aleksander to discover that she has not been using her powers since Sergei turned himself in on her behalf.

\--

While Grisha are citizens, it is still not entirely safe. Many of those guards, those soldiers, had families. Many still view their abilities as heresy. It is hard for Grisha to find employment, as many gave up their stores or lands to join the rebellion. More and more Grisha voluntarily enlist for longer service with the Queen’s army.

Rumors start once more. That this was what the Queen wanted all along. That Grisha are the definition of expendable, and that she intends to win the war against Fjerdan with brute numbers alone.

It doesn’t matter if some of those numbers are children like Genya.

\--

Zoya comes to visit. Alone. She still wears her blue _kefta_ proudly, and Aleksander notices silver embroidery along its hems and collar. It reminds him painfully of a girl in a valley, from a lifetime ago.

“You’ve been miserable too long, _sestrenka_. It’s draining just watching you,” she says curtly, between delicate sips of tea.

“Half of our friends are dead, Genya is conscripted, and my husband is missing,” Alina whispers, not looking away from the window. She’s always, _always_ looking out the window.

Aleksander sits silently in Ivan’s chair. Listening. It’s easy to eavesdrop, when both sisters pretend he no longer exists.

“And the Grisha are citizens,” Zoya replies, with a softness in her tone that Aleksander has not heard before. She reaches out to grab Alina’s hand, “…and Ivan-“

“Don’t,” Alina snarls, ripping her hand away, “Say he left.”

Zoya sighs, and puts another cube of sugar into her cup.

\--

One month later, both Zoya and her husband are called to serve at the border between Ravka and Fjerdan. And Alina draws further into herself.

\--

After Genya goes to sleep, he sits with her in front of the fire once more. They have done this countless of times, but tonight the air between them is tense and uncomfortable. It’s been a while, since they were alone like this.

“You need to use your power, Alina,” he says.

She does. And they both know it. Alina is smaller and more sickly, her constitution weak and her face thinner. She holds the cup of tea in between her hands and silently stares out of the window.

Aleksander sighs. “Alina…”

“He wouldn’t have left, darkling.”

He starts, turning to face her. Alina turns her attention directly to him for the first time since he’s arrived at her door, “We’ve argued before. He’s never left me over it.” Her eyes narrow, and though her words are calm, he sees a shake to her fingers when she takes a drink, “I’ve talked to the guards. And his friends. No one’s seen him.”

Aleksander slowly nods, “Then…” he lets the ominous statement hang in the air.

Alina grips her tea cup, and turns back to the window. They say nothing to each other for the rest of the night.

\--

The next morning, she wakes him with a touch on his bare shoulder. She is, for the first time since he’s returned, wearing her _kefta._

“You’re right,” she says coldly. “Let’s spar.”

\--

In the mornings, they spar. During the day, she spends her time with Genya and watches the windows. He reads the journals. And at night, they sit by the fire together in silence.

\--

Six months pass. And Aleksander decides he is not going to allow her to waste away for a man who will never be returning.

 

 **xxii.**  

He moves carefully.

During some spars he holds her for longer than is necessary. Some nights he sets his hand on top of hers. He sees her unwind at his touch, as his power calls and soothes her own. Sometimes he even thinks he sees that questionable look of desire in her eyes, the craving for the amplification only he can give her. It surfaces, every so often, somewhere between her grief and hardness.

After the first two months, she no longer flinches when it happens.

\--

An idea grows within him, as he remembers the techniques from so very long ago that he once considered. A way to enter her thoughts through the tether, a way to make her see something that isn’t entirely there.

It’s worth trying. And so, another month after Alina stops staring out the windows all night, he decides to do so.

\--

Aleksander watches her make tea on the night he decides to attempt his experiment. Her neck is craned over the fireplace, pale hands lifting the iron kettle onto the hook above it. Her cheeks, once more, have health to them. A result of their numerous spars out behind her house. Her eyes still move to the window, but not as frequently as before. And while he knows that what he is about to do has a tremendous possibility of backfiring, he still wants to try. He wants to help her move past what she has already lost.

And, he simply wants her. It’s been almost three years of wanting, of waiting. Of being pushed away. And he’s tired of it.

Aleksander waits for her to stand up from the fire, and then he walks up next to her.

“I want to do something.”

Alina frowns, slowly turning to face him. Her voice is thick with suspicion, “What is it.”

He decides to give her as much truth as he can, “ _Merzost._ ”

She goes completely still, her hands balling into fists at her side. But she’s silent. So he continues.

“I. Think it will help you.”

“Help me with what.”

He inhales, and tries to keep his tone certain. Confident. He feels neither, “Return to the living.”

She only stares. And he takes that as permission. Aleksander closes his eyes, and wills his appearance to change in her vision.

She gasps, and a hand goes to cover her mouth as she backs quickly against the wall. Aleksander swallows, opening his eyes once more and watching as Alina’s chest moves up and down in quick, nearly violent breaths. The low light from the fireplace casts her profile in blacks and golds, and as her eyes begin to water, he can’t look away.

They stand in a silence heavy enough to suffocate them both.

“…It’s alright.” He finally says, trying his best to keep his voice level. He’s nervous: about this, about them, and he has no idea why.

Alina squeezes her eyes close. Tears spill from them, and leave a parallel line down each cheek.

Aleksander hesitates, before stepping closer. He moves his hand to her cheek, and she flinches before unsurely but undeniably leaning in to his touch, “Alina,” he whispers, her skin warm against his palm.

At her name, her eyes slowly open. He wonders what it is that she sees when she stares at him, as if for the first time.

“It’s alright,” he repeats again.

More tears join the first, and she bites down painfully on her lip. He wonders, for a moment, if she is trying to shake her head.

But if that is what she is attempting, it’s a brief protest that she is unable to manage. Timidly, one of her hands comes to rest above his, and she threads her fingers through his own. Aleksander smiles at the contact. It’s a small expression, but one that is genuine. Her hand trembles in his hold.

Alina is silent. She only watches him, her golden eyes like brands.

Aleksander leans forward, and it’s a careful motion until she does not move away. Because when Alina does not recoil, or turn, he finds he no longer has it in himself to be _gentle._ With a desperate intensity, he claims her mouth with his own.

Her lips are chapped, but warm, and after only a second or two they begin to kiss him back. Desire washes over him like a flood, and his body starts to move of its own accord. After all this time, after all this waiting, she has finally accepted one inevitable fact:

They have always only been meant for each other.

And it’s better for her, to realize this. To understand that anything other than the two of them is not permanent and imperfect. Aleksander’s relief rises to meet his lust—it’s as if a burden has finally lessened from his shoulders. It’s as if he’s finally allowed to feel complete, to indulge this hidden, selfish desire to no longer be alone.

He twists his head and presses a slow, searing kiss against the underside of her jaw. He trails his lips and tongue down the column of her neck, his breath coming in quickly as he moves a hand to her hip. The hard feel of her waist under his palm is an amazing contradiction to the softness of her shoulder, as he peels the fabric of her dress off of it.

“How?” She finally rasps, as he tastes every exposed inch of her he can find.

Aleksander shifts, reluctantly tearing himself away from the expanse of her collar bone to rest his forehead against hers. He frames her face with his hands, the fingers of one burrowing into her hair as if they were uncontrollable entities outside of himself, and takes a few steadying breaths. His voice is hoarse when he speaks, but he can’t help it. He has never wanted anything more than he has wanted this—her, in this moment. And now he has it.

“Does it matter.”

Alina takes a shuddering inhale, but does not protest, and Aleksander takes that as permission to kiss her once again.

After a moment, her hand runs up his chest, stopping when it hovers above his sternum. He’s barely aware of her pressing her fingertips against the rapid staccato of his heart, his mind far too preoccupied on the feel of her lips. He does not feel those same fingers hesitantly curl into a fist.

The hand he has on her hip curves around to the small of her back, and he presses her closer. Her fist stays between them, and when it presses firmly against his chest he registers it for the first time. A wall.

“Get away from me,” she mutters, when he goes to kiss her neck instead of her mouth.

Aleksander stills, “Why.”

Alina’s words are too broken to be angry, and her voice hitches just a little with the repression of a sob, “This isn’t real.”

He does not move his hand from her lower back, and with the other brushes his thumb over the wet plane of her cheek. She is fully crying now, he realizes with surprise. He’s not sure when she started.

“I can make it real.” He promises. And he can, if it’s what she desires. For a little while. Until she’s finished with this old diversion masquerading itself as a life. When she’s done being weak.

“ _Don’t,_ ” she snarls, closing her eyes. Her fingers pry at the wrist near her face, but he doesn’t pull his hand away.

He tilts her head back, and presses a softer kiss to her throat, “Let me try.”

Alina sags in his embrace, “…did you kill him.”

Aleksander stops. And pulls away to look at her. To meet her eyes, which are red rimmed.

“No.”

He notices that her fingers have not released his wrist. And Aleksander twists his arm, just enough to allow her thumb to slide from over his pulse. The blunt edges of her nails dig into his skin.

“Where is he, darkling.”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

She presses harder, but he keeps his expression even. “Liar.”

Aleksander closes his eyes, and feels the false image slide from him as easily as a film of oil over water. She starts, a little, at the transformation and when he looks again, he knows she is looking at his true face once more. Because the vulnerability is gone from her expression.

“I did this for you,” he whispers, before he can think of what he is saying.

And Aleksander knows that he does not imagine her flinch.

“What are you talking about.”

He takes a moment before gesturing to his face, “I became what you desired.” He leans forward, and she tenses as he presses a kiss to her forehead, “To help you accept that your husband has abandoned you.”

He anticipates her desire to hit him, and so pins her body against him before she can swing the hand that is still in a tight fist. He holds her head gently but firmly against his chest, leaning down to bring his lips to the shell of her ear.

“He _has_ abandoned you.”

Her snarl is muffled against him, but still clearly heard, “How dare you. After all we’ve-“

“You’re nearly immortal, Alina.” He cuts her off, and from how she tenses against him, he knows that this is the first time someone has articulated what she has always secretly known.

“…What?”

Aleksander presses his lips together. “If he had not abandoned you because of this, he would have abandoned you later. Our lives are much, much longer than any other Grisha’s. You will outlive everyone you know besides me.”

Alina’s breath is coming in ragged once more, and yet again she tries to push away from him. He holds her firm, “Get out of our house.”

 _Our._ Anger spikes down his back, and he hears the bitterness in his words, “He’s not coming back for you, Alina. Did you believe your short marriage made you exempt? He left, because he feared-“

She slams her fist against his chest, punctuating every word with another hit, “Get. Out.”

Aleksander knows he should stop speaking, but the words fall away so quickly he doesn’t know how to begin to stop them, “I will never be afraid of you-“

Alina’s next shove is harder, and he takes a few steps back. He is not surprised to see sun glowing around the palms of her hands. Her face is full of hatred as she stares at him. He doesn’t care. Hatred is temporary. Every emotion is temporary—only contained in one, singular moment in time before it dies for another.

“That’s only because,” the light in her hands swells, “You’re worse than me.”

Aleksander’s jaw clenches.

Something softer enters her tone. Almost gentle. He now knows better.

“Did you kill my husband, Piotr.”

His hands clench tightly into fists.

“That’s not my name.”

“Did you ever have a real one.”

“Once.”

He expects her to draw her Cut. Instead she snuffs the lights in her hands out after a few moments. Taking that as an invitation, he steps forward. Alina immediately shakes her head in protest.

“I don’t want to see you again.”

Shock hits him at the words, “What.”

“I want you to leave Kribirsk. And I want you to not come back.”

Hatred only exists in moments.

He walks around her, nearly in a half circle, “I’m not leaving Kribirsk.”

Alina tilts her chin up, defiant as always, “We’ve gone too far. And I’m not going further with you.”

“You will.”

“No. I’m done.”

He hears his knuckles crack in a quick succession, “It’s no longer your decision.”

“It is. And I’m finished with it—the army, the killings, the journals—I’m through with it all. We got what we wanted, and now it’s over.”

He grabs her chin. She meets his gaze steadily.

“Just because you lost your husband?”

Something in her expression twists, as if pained, “…because I almost believed you when you said he was afraid of me.”

Aleksander’s grip tightens, involuntarily, but she doesn’t flinch. She’s calm enough to be empty. “It doesn’t matter in the end.”

“It does to me.”

“We’re close to liberating all of Grisha, of having a legitimate place in Ravka, and you want to stop fighting because of a husband too weak to keep you?”

“Don’t call him weak.”

He ignores her, “We can _use_ fear, Alina. To keep everyone safe. Isn’t that what matters?”

Her chin stays tilted up in defiance, but he sees uncertainty in her gaze. And so he exposes the last wound she has.

“What about Zoya.”

Alina stills.

“And her husband.” Aleksander feels that never-forgotten hatred rise up once more, “The _otkazat’sya._ What about Genya.”

Her eyes water again. And they stand in silence. Eventually, he dares enough to move his fingers from her chin to the side of her head, back into her hair. Neither move, though their chests rise and fall with barely repressed anger and pain.

“Damn you,” she whispers, breaking the stillness after what feels like hours.

“If you must,” he replies, and kisses her once more before she can protest it.

She pushes him away after a moment, and her words are dangerous and cold, “…If you wear Ivan’s face again, I’ll kill you.”

He believes her. But as she walks away to her room, he also believes that tonight was the first time she didn’t look out a window.

\--

Time will change things between them. It always does.

\--

But time also brings the news that Mal Oretsev is killed near the border. And that Genya is receiving orders to serve at the palace in Os Alta. And so time changes something in Alina Morevna first.

 

 **xxiii.**  

He is about to leave the house when he feels her fingers close around his wrist. Aleksander stills his step.

“They’re coming for Genya in three days,” Alina says, her voice flat. “Will you help me stop them.”

He turns, meeting her eyes. “What do you have in mind.”

She takes a breath, “Anything. She’s not going,” Alina’s eyes are red-rimmed, “Whatever you want.”

There is one thing they can do. One thing they haven’t tried. And Aleksander thinks about his journals. About _merzost._ About the half-written page that spoke of power that no one should hold.

“If we do this,” he says, carefully, trying to repress the maniac sort of hope that has just overtaken him, “There’s no going back, Alina. Not from this. Not from me, afterwards. It will take both of us. It will…” he brings a hand to the side of her face, “Change our powers.”

She stares into his eyes, and he watches her lean into his touch with an almost calculated motion. He finds he doesn’t mind, “Anything.” She repeats.

\--

He studies. He rereads the passage of _merzost,_ over and over again. And he thinks of the cathedral dedicated to Ilya Morozova, of its dark tunnels underneath. Pieces of his theories slide and interlock into place. And the next night, he waits for Alina to tuck Genya into bed and they leave together one, final time for Pravdovret.

\--

They enter the cathedral, and Aleksander leads her by hand through the lower levels. Past the old dormitories, past the final stairwell.

And into the catacombs.

He feels its call, as clearly and softly as a caress, as he passes rows and rows of bones. Alina follows close behind him, her hand illuminating the darkness, casting an eerie shadow that breaks the stillness of the hallowed space. The call stops when they reach a final set of bones. And Aleksander knows, intrinsically and inarguably, that they now stand directly underneath the statue of Ilya Morozova. That this spot, behind the glass of the cathedral and the bricks of Pravdovret, is the very heart of Kribirsk. That he kept returning to this place, that statue, for this reason.

And, that the bones in front of them once belonged to someone of his blood. That they are from a very long, long time ago.

Alina’s voice is soft, but determined, “What are we doing.”

Aleksander draws a quiet breath, “We’re going to build a different army.”

Her hand is clammy in his, but Aleksander sends his power through the tether. She responds, after a moment, and he turns to her. He looks into her eyes, watches the rise and fall of her chest. And knows that they are about to make history.

“Touch the bones.”

Alina sends him a skeptical look, but she drops her hand from his and approaches the last, final body of the cathedral. It is impossible to tell its gender, or age, or any other features. But the necklace resting against its sternum makes him think this skeleton was once a woman.

_Like the Firebird._

Alina takes a deep breath, and rests her hand over the very necklace.

What happens next is a nova. Light, beautiful and golden and terrifying, emits from Alina like a beacon. Her skin glows, her eyes widen, and the air itself becomes charged and magnetic. Breathing in the air is like breathing in electricity, and Aleksander takes a step back despite himself.

Slowly, as if remembering herself, Alina Morevna turns and looks over her shoulder. His heart beats heavily against his chest, as though trying to escape. She extends a hand, the tips of her fingers shining.

He is compelled to grab them.

Her touch sends a fissure through him, and he drops to his knees at the intensity of it. Alina’s grip is tight, and it stays fixed even though his own hand goes limp.

“Hold on,” she whispers.

Aleksander takes a moment to collect himself, and he pushes himself into a standing position once more. The darkness he controls spasms out of his grasp, the shadows around them whirling faster and faster until they nearly form a vortex. He watches, transfixed, as Alina’s sunlight joins them, and the two forces unify. He breathes. His body once again weakens, and he feels the strength of his legs abandon him as Alina slowly, and deliberately brings her face down to his.

“ _Merzost,_ ” she whispers, awed but unafraid.

Aleksander doesn’t trust himself to speak. So he only nods. He slams his eyes closed, and thinks of the army. Of giving things back to what lost them. Of being all things, of all things being him. He pulls her closer to him, and presses his lips against hers.

The contact sends another wave of power, and watches as his shadows surge larger and more chaotic. As the vortex that surrounds them swells and crests, like middle of a sea. He presses her tighter against him, parting her lips with his tongue as he deepens the kiss. Whatever this is, it’s powerful and it’s his and _he can control it_. Her hands balls into the front of his _kefta,_ making desperate fists. But he buries his own hand into her hair, feels their connection intensify.

Feels her power drain into his.

His eyes widen, as her breathing comes in shorter and shorter gasps, and Aleksander tries to pull away when he realizes that he is becoming a siphon. That _merzost_ is taking a payment for its expense.

Horror fills him when Alina only presses him closer.

“Stop,” he croaks, tearing his mouth from hers, “Alina, _stop_.”

She squeezes her eyes close. The light that is combined with the shadow in the forming sea dims as the darkness overtakes it more and more with each rotation.

He feels her lips against his ear, “I-“

The darkness expands, drifting up, drifting further. Licking at the ceilings of the catacombs and expanding beyond his comprehension.

She kisses his jaw, “-read the journals, too.”

The bones belong to his blood. They won’t kill him.

But _merzost_ has a cost. Everything has a cost. And to give life to the lifeless, to make his monstrous army, means giving death to the living. To the only person who can match his abilities long enough to create this abomination. The only power that can Fold so neatly into his.

And he’s amplifying her, as she pours out everything she has. Their tether stretches and pulls between them. Darkness, true darkness, can’t exist unless its opposition is snuffed out like a lonely candle.

And so he feels her dying against him.

“Don’t,” he demands, but she buries her face further into the crook of his neck, “Leave me alone.”

Her inhales come in ragged, her exhales come not at all. Her voice is thick with accusation, “You.” She grabs his arms, “Left me alone, first.”

Her lips press against his neck, and she collapses against him. Aleksander screams, as a part of his soul rips itself out and is fed into the sea that expands around their bodies.

 

**xxiv.**

He wakes. He is lying in a bed, the sheets clean but twisted around him. He wakes with gasping breaths.

And to a familiar hand, pressing a cold cloth against his forehead.

Aleksander groans, “Alina-“

“The girl is dead,” his mother says, her voice oddly flat, “You won’t be able to find her body.”

He closes his eyes. He can hear the anger in his voice as he bites out his next question, “ _Why_.” And he’s not sure what he wants an answer to.

Baghra’s careful fingers brush back his hair and gather it into a loose ponytail, away from his face. Her tone continues to be devoid of anything—of judgment, of anger, of compassion, “I warned you not to look for Morozova. I _warned_ you.”

He swallows. It’s a dry and painful motion to do. “Where-?”

His _madraya_ takes a slow breath, as she continues to wipe away his sweat, “You’ve been unconscious for two weeks. We are on the other side of what is left of Kribirsk.”

“Left,” he echoes.

Baghra pulls away, and her dark eyes seem to pierce through him.

“What they are calling the Unsea has swallowed Pravdovret, and…” she presses her lips tightly together, and she takes her time considering her next statement.

“Ravka, is broken.”

**\--**

**Next:** The Third Life, Old Women

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This Life was based on the fairy tale The Death of Koschei the Deathless. There's a few different versions of it running around, but I drew mostly from this:  
> http://russian-crafts.com/tales/maria_morevna.html
> 
> and this!  
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koschei


	8. The Third Life: Old Women (part i)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uff da, so it’s been a break! Sorry for the wait! This life is the canon timeline, and it’ll be two (short) parts :3 enjoy!

**o.**

The brighter the star, the faster it burns, the quicker it dies.  
The darker the night, the colder it seems, the lonelier it feels.

Stars that die quickly are born slowly, with century after century spent collecting what is needed to reignite. To shine.

Lonely nights are born quickly and die slowly, with century after century spent losing what is needed to remember. To love.

But sometimes in the dark, in the loneliness, there are mothers.  
And mothers do not lose as easily.

**The Third Life: Old Women, Part One**

**i.**

The knife scraped across the stone at an angle, effortlessly sliding through the potato in a neat, even slice.

“You’re angry with me.”

Her hand pauses, for only a moment, before she continues cutting, “I am never angry with you.”

Silence. But she feels his stare on her, expectant. The water in the kettle over the tile oven begins to steam. She chops the rest of the potato, pushing it to the side along with the onions and carrots. And hears his sigh, slow and measured.

“Then you think I’m wrong.”

Her mouth twitches. That, she can never claim against. But as her thin hand wipes the flat of her knife against her old _kefta,_ the smile dies. Because what does it mean, if he is right? For she made sure he never became a fool.

“What I think matters little,” she lifts the tray, and walks slowly to the kettle, where she shovels the vegetables into the water, “As a decision’s already been reached,” the water sloshes from one edge to another, and she moves to sit across from him, “It’s of no use.”

From his chair, he folds one leg over the other. Always prepared for a throne, this one, “You’ll train her.”

She snorts, folding her hands under her chin and staring into the flames, “Oh I will, will I?”

His lip quirks, in a boyish way she has not seen for some time now, “You must be at least a little curious.”

“I am too old for curious _._ ”

He straightens, a hand reaching out to stir the soup, “Excitement, then.”

“And far too old for _that_.”

They sit in silence. The vegetables cook.

When he speaks again, his voice is softer, “ _Madraya._ ”

She takes a breath. And feels a headache blossoming above the bridge of her nose, along with a sour note in her stomach she knows is not from the earlier herring.

But, because dinner is going to burn if they continue this tiring discussion, she relents, “…Your stray gets one day. If she’s not entirely useless, I’ll give her two.”

“Thank you.”

Baghra frowns as she pours soup into two bowls, “I have no interest in coddling. If she’s weak, she goes.”

Her son takes the food when she offers it, “I think…” he pauses, contemplating his words, “She may surprise you.”

She feels her eyes narrow as he begins to eat from her cheap, clay bowl. No doubt they have porcelain and crystal at the Little Palace, but his evening has found him here. And his stare is far away, face set in an expression she knows all too well.

“Surprise is even worse than excitement,” Baghra mutters, but he does not acknowledge hearing it.

Instead, Aleksander continues to look into nothing. The soup tastes like chalk on her tongue.

\--

The stray is late. And let all the heat out because she is incapable of closing a door. She is also entirely formed of elbows and knees—the wind would knock her over. Or a breeze, summoned by one of the Squaller children playing tag.

But Baghra knows she did not raise her son to be a fool. So she grabs the stray’s wrist-

\--

“Will you see her again tomorrow?”

Baghra hears the smirk in his voice, and her lips purse “She’s weak.”

“She is a Sun Summoner.”

“The sun is summoned every morning. Today it was just in a room.”

Aleksander arches his brows, “You haven’t answered.”

Her fingers tighten on her cane. And Baghra thinks carefully about her response. They have heard rumors, of course, about the existence of Sun Summoners. But the rumors seem so distant now. Lost to eternity, like so many other things.

But the girl has power. It’s uncontrolled and useless, but still power. And Baghra knows her son. She knows who will seek to train the girl if Baghra does not. A sharpened knife is only good in steady hands, and she has had her concerns in that area for some time now.

She wets her dry lips, “I could see her for a hundred tomorrows. If she can’t call her own power, the girl’s worthless and there’s no remedy for it.”

Her son takes a sip of the bitter tea she’s made, remaining quiet. Baghra does not like her son _quiet_ with her. He is quiet with his soldiers. He is quiet with servants. He is quiet with the people he expects to fill silence in order to please him. It dawns on her, with no small amount of irritation, that he is waiting for her to explain herself.

She will not. Baghra instead turns back to her book. She feels Aleksander’s eyes trained intensely on her, but she ignores them. Once he realizes that she is not going to indulge him, he speaks in a voice level barely above a whisper.

“She called it when I touched her.”

Something crawls across her mind at the words, a clinging, intangible sort of snag like walking through cobwebs: _madraya I swear it was different, this time. Her power was like_ ours-

And then it’s gone. Baghra frowns at the words on the page, troubled. But makes an effort at scoffing, “Congratulations. You now have a lead weight shackled to your ankle.”

Aleksander takes another sip of tea, and comes to a realization, “…You amplified her.”

“I did nothing of the sort.”

“You saw her power.”

Baghra’s lips press tighter together.

Her son gives a ghost of a smirk, placing the cup on the saucer without a sound, and stands, “I will make the arrangements.”

“For what.”

“Her training.”

“I haven’t agreed to train her.”

Aleksander stands, taking a few quiet steps until he is beside where she sits. He hunches, just a little, in order to bring his finger underneath the line she is reading.

**In theory, mental resistance may impede physical performance in the conjuring of small sciences…**

“A Corporalki text, I assume?”

Baghra clenches her jaw. She did not raise her son to be a fool.

“Mother,” he whispers, and she does not like his tone. She does not like that he is imposing this broken tool onto her for whetting. Something, cold and abstract but _settled,_ knows that this girl is going to be a problem before she is a solution, “Admit your curiosity.”

She snaps the book shut, he pulls his fingers back at the last second. She looks up, dark eyes meeting gray ones with little warmth exchanged between them.

“You should have left her in the army,” she hisses.

His brows furrow, “She’s nothing to Ravka in the army.”

And her boy needs his Ravka, doesn’t he? Needs his _own_ army.

“She would have been happier with nothing.”

“And you believe the happiness of one girl outweighs the good of the country?”

“No. But my good is also not your good.”

Her son’s fingers tighten into a fist where they still rest on the table, “I’ve been waiting for this. For her.”

She leans back in her seat, her hands resting on her knees, “And now you’re rewarded. With a summoner who can’t summon. “

“You’ll show her.”

“And if I won’t?”

Their stares connect again. And the expression on her son’s face is strange and familiar all at once. One of Aleksander’s fingers tap the cover of the book.

“You’ll show her,” he repeats coldly, leaving her hut without another word.

\--

It’s not until much later that Baghra realizes where she has seen the look on her son’s face before. It was there a long time ago, in the basement of an old house belonging to two sisters, a mother, and their father: on a man who held the damning and compelling emotion of _curiosity_ in far higher esteem than he held anything else.

 

 **ii.**  

If the girl _sighs_ one more time Baghra will ship her off in a crate to Fjerda herself.

“It’s not working,” the girl grumbles from her spot in the middle of Baghra’s hut, legs and arms contorted in meditative positions adopted from a Shu Han practice. The exercises are courtesy of a tome Botkin borrowed her some months ago.

It’s not supposed to work. Fool girl should have realized that by now.

“That’s because you’re meant to be _silent,_ ” Baghra snarls, fingers furiously working at a torn seam in one of her cloaks as the girl continues to remain twisted like some ridiculous Sulli pastry and tea leaves boil in the kettle.

It’s a physical act, for the girl to bite back her tongue. Baghra watches it with some amusement, clearly obedience is not a bone in this fool’s body. The girl sends her a look of acid, before closing her eyes and trying to level out her breathing.

Baghra lets her suffer for a few minutes, before she whacks the back of the girl’s knee with her cane, “Up!” She barks, moving to the kettle.

“You just said-“

Baghra ignores her, pouring the hot liquid into a small, earthen cup and jutting it under her nose, “Drink this.”

“What?”

“Are you deaf as well as useless? Drink the tea.”

“What is _tea_ going to do?”

“What is your question going to do?”

The girl grumbles something under her breath, but she grabs the tea and downs it. She goes chalk-pale at the taste (which is quite a feat, considering she looks sicker than a barefoot urchin in Tsibeya), and sends her an accusatory look.

“Was that poison?”

Close enough. Baghra had to boil vinegar to clean out her kettle.

“It was a lesson. Now back into sitting in the folded flower.”

The accusation in her stare doesn’t fade, but the girl obeys and manages to pull herself into the twists and turns and strange locations for elbows once more. She takes a breath, and Baghra stares at her with calculating eyes as the girl attempts to pull from something that doesn’t want to break free.

…If the girl’s worth anything, she’ll figure out the point of all this soon enough.

\--

It is two weeks and thirteen failed lessons with the girl before her son attempts to contact her once more. Baghra is elbow-deep in the soil outside of her hut, relishing the sharp smells from her herb garden as she weeds and prunes, back hunched over and the comforting ache of labor in her shoulders, when his lapdog arrives.

The _Corporalki,_ who is handsome and powerful and all those other qualities that make for a wreck of a person, does not bow when he approaches her. He does not press his fist to his chest. And irritation flares once more as she tries to find the name that belongs to _this_ one, one of her many, many interchangeable students who are also handsome and powerful.

“The Darkling wishes to speak to you,” he says it like it’s a foregone conclusion, a small smirk on his lips at having given an order. It’s a little power play no doubt. Petty vengeance from when she had him as a student.

The name clicks into place. Ivan. There’s always an Ivan.

Baghra ignores him, pulling on the stem of a spoiled lavender plant.

And the smirk falls way to a scowl. How easy it is, to control the emotions of _children_.

“It’s urgent,” he says, with just a hint of a snarl.

“It can’t be that urgent,” she pulls harder on the stem, “If you’re the one to summon me.”

The plant uproots, spraying flecks of dirt that land on his pristine, red _kefta._ A clot of mud hits him straight in the chest. The scowl deepens. She can practically hear the boy grind his teeth to the gums.

“…I will let the Darkling know not to expect you,” he bites, before turning sharply on his heel and stalking out as quickly as he had stormed in.

Baghra moves on to her rosemary. She is old and irrelevant, but she is no one’s _servant._

\--

The girl is halfway through another drink of boiled vinegar before she throws it angrily in Baghra’s sink, “It’s disgusting and it’s not working.” The girl’s eyes are level with Baghra’s own, as if daring her to challenge it.

Baghra fights the urge to smile. Instead, her grizzled frown remains in place, “…Four more meditation exercises, and then I think we’ve gotten as much use out of you as we can today.”

\--

“Still avoiding the Palace.”

She’s not surprised to see him there, reclined in her favorite reading chair, not looking up from one of the numerous books she has lining her shelves. It’s one thing they’ve always shared, her and her son. The appreciation for stillness and solitude that comes with reading.

“Still having your Corporalki deliver messages.”

The corners of Aleksander’s lips tighten in a secretive smile. He turns a page, “We need to talk.”

“Then speak.”

He exhales, long and slow and patient, before he sets the book face-down on his lap, “The Apparat is going to be an inconvenience.”

“To what?”

Aleksander sends her a chastising look, as though the question shouldn’t be necessary and she insults him by asking it, “I need Alina ready. Soon.”

It takes her a moment to realize that Alina is the girl, the fool. That the Sun Summoner and redeemer of Aleksander’s Ravka now has a person attached to it, as far as her son is concerned.

“So she has a name.”

Aleksander stills, just for a moment. And Baghra feels that indeterminate _snag_ once more ( _her name is Alina,_ he writes, _just like before_ ), as he takes a second longer than necessary to work through his own thoughts.

“You’ve been giving her tea instead of real training.” He finally accuses, soft and dangerous.

Baghra shrugs, “Her problem isn’t anything I can fix.”

He straightens in his seat, the book begins to slide the floor but he catches it with a deft hand and puts it on the end table, “…then you know what’s stopping her.”

Baghra works her thoughts around in her mind a few times. Wondering how it is best to proceed in this area that grows increasingly like a minefield. She understands her son’s desire for what the girl represents. She does not think he has thought it entirely through in his zeal for that power. People are not concepts, they are fallible and foolish and Baghra worries he is putting too much weight on the shoulders of a girl who can barely hold herself up.

“I have a suspicion,” she finally allows.

“And that is.”

“She’s not ready,” Baghra says flatly, moving to the opposite side of the seating area in her hut, “to be what she is, instead of who she is.”

Her son digests the statement for a few moments, before he scowls. Baghra is taken aback as what can only be anger crosses his features, eyes flashing and fingers tightening on the armchairs. It has been some time since she has seen the emotion so blatant in him when he is not speaking of the King.

“You’re saying she refuses to let go of Keramzin.”

“I’m saying nothing. Only speculating.”

“…there’s a boy,” he finally says, the ire fading out of his tone just as easily as it arrived. It does nothing to settle Baghra, “An easy enough problem to be remedied.”

She shoots him a dark look. But she knows enough about Aleksander to understand what lines are acceptable for him to cross, and so says nothing. Instead, she feels the undeniable sensation of a migraine forming between her eyes.

“And what are you going to do, when she is what she is?” She asks pointedly, “Give her a black _kefta_? Give her a throne? Keep her your soldier like one of your Corporalki?” Baghra shakes her head, “She’s a _child._ A few months ago she was drawing _maps_ and you would have her herald a kingdom? Lead an army?”

“She is not like the Corporalki,” he says tensely, but she can tell, better than most, that her questions have troubled him, “They are building altars to her, in the south.”

Baghra snorts, “Altars are built to lots of things undeserving of them, as you know.”

“Yes. But the people already adore her.”

Something twists in Baghra. And she feels her words come off her tongue as dry as paper, “…what are you planning.”

He smiles, a real smile, and she feels the press of memory upon her at the expression: a boy, the same age but much younger, standing before her and telling her a story about the firebird. She doesn’t know where the image comes from, but it hits her hard and fierce and she can only sense that something is about to go completely, irrevocably, _wrong._

“I’m going to borrow this,” is all he says, lifting the book which is too far away for her to make out the title. Aleksander takes a few steps closer to her, kisses her dryly on the cheek, “Please continue your training with Alina.”

He goes for the door. And Baghra glares at the walls of her windowless hut.

“Before you go.”

He stops.

She doesn’t turn away from the shadows, as she watches them curl and twist in the dark corners of what she has called home for far too long. Baghra takes a breath.

“There are limits. To what can be shared,” she closes her eyes, “To what _should_ be shared.”

He hesitates for only a moment, before she hears the door to her hut open.

“Goodnight, mother.”

And swing close. Leaving her alone in the dark.

\--

When she realizes what’s missing from her shelf, her blood runs cold like ice.

 

**iii.**

“I didn’t raise a fool,” she spits as soon as he opens the door to her hut.

“Of course not,” he agrees calmly, entering her tile kitchen. His visit is earlier than usual, and also right before the girl is to arrive for practice. She does not think it’s a coincidence.

“Because only a _fool_ would take that journal.”

“You noticed.”

“Only a bigger fool wouldn’t.”

“You’re overreacting,” he continues, undisturbed as he leans against the counter from her, arms folding gracefully across his chest.

“There’s nothing to them,” she lies, angrily and quickly, “Just a mad man’s ramblings.”

He follows her with his eyes, watching her expression closely, “Then there’s no harm in me looking for them.”

“And how are you going to look for what doesn’t exist?”

“…By making rabbits out of rocks.”

She frowns, not understanding the cryptic statement or appreciating it, “Speak plainly.”

His lips twitch, “I have a tracker.”

The words are out before she can speak them, poisonous, “Did you learn _anything_ from the first time you decided to listen to Morozova?”

It takes him a moment to realize what she’s referring to. When he does, she again sees that foreign animation dance across his features, the strange, palpable swell of anger that emerges from him. The cracks in the mask he has been wearing for so long she sometimes forgets there’s a boy underneath it.

“I am out of time to waste. She needs an amplifier.”

 _I’m going to bring her an amplifier._ The thought hits her like a pebble bouncing against cave walls, muted but echoing all the same.

“We have nothing but time,” Baghra snaps.

“No. It needs to be done soon,” he runs a hand through his hair, an old gesture that stirs something forgotten in her, “I’ve waited. I’ve _waited_ -!”

“Then wait longer,” her words are harsh, almost cutting. But she doesn’t care. She remembers what happened after Kribirsk in a way her son does not. She remembers Ilya Morozova in a way he never could. She remembers it, like a faded tattoo just beneath the skin: a faded picture but with the clear, visceral memory of _pain._

“She’s an opportunity I can’t afford to let slip away.”

“She’s a Sun Summoner.”

“I’m aware.”

“And you want to give her an amplifier? _Morozova’s_ amplifier?” She shakes her head, looking up because she can’t stomach her rage long enough to meet his gaze, “For what? The Fold?”

He tenses at the word. But she sees his fingers curl into a fist, “No, for Ravka.”

“I didn’t raise a fool-!” she swears.

He frowns, anger still curling around him like smoke, and only raises a finger. “Someone’s coming,” he bites out.

The door opens.

And there stands the Sun Summoner.

Baghra watches, as the girl lets the heat out of her hut and stares at Aleksander in a way that only makes the migraine return stronger.

“The boy thinks to get you an amplifier,” she says slowly, watching the girl like a hawk, “What do you think of that, girl?”

The girl wears her soul on her face. It’s not a compliment. And Baghra sees her expression morph from confusion, to disbelief, and finally _to delight._

“I think it’s brilliant!”

Of course she does. Because she’s young, and naïve, and weak. And how can power sound like anything but joy when one has only been deprived of it their entire life?

Aleksander takes the girl out of her hut for a walk, and Baghra watches them, their bodies close enough for her to realize what kind of game her son has been playing with the newest Grisha. The girl _blushes_ when she comes back to Baghra’s hut for training.

Baghra closes her eyes.

It’s time for a different approach.

\--

She sees whatever fight the girl had leave. That hint of defiance, that hint of real strength she saw when the girl threw the vinegar water in the sink, retreats like a serpent from the frost. The arrogance hangs like a halo over her, the conviction and privilege that having an _amplifier_ promised to her has afforded.

And it infuriates her. Because, as her son had promised, they are now out of time.

The girl doesn’t know Morozova. She does not know that anything from him is not a _gift._ And Baghra is certain it is more for her son’s sake than hers that she stops the antlers from ever hanging around her neck.

The only way for that to happen is to make the girl powerful in her own right. To get that challenge back. To prove to Aleksander that the amplifiers are not necessary for whatever plot he is foolishly implementing without restraint.

“You’re not even trying anymore!” Baghra growls, when the girl half-heartedly enters a meditative position.

The girl only _shrugs._

\--

Her son does not visit. Or return the book he wrongfully borrowed.

\--

Baghra watches as the time goes. As the girl waits for the magical deer to take her problems away. As her son waits for news from soldiers stationed in Tsibeya. As the students she mentors complain about the cold air, the bitter chill from the lake. As heat continues to get let out of her hut by children with the inability to close a door.

She sees the Sun Summoner fade. She sees someone settle into complacency, and she can’t make her realize that she’s damning them all with it.

She wants the girl who threw tea. She does not want this shell who sits in a finely embroidered _kefta_ and sulks.

\--

Baghra gets her wish, suddenly and jarringly. She’s not sure what has driven the girl back to her anger, her rage. But she watches, one day in her hut, as the girl lets go of something (someone) that was holding her back, as light washes out from her like a wave.

\--

It’s not enough.  
She just wanted it, for once, to be enough.

**iv.**

“You never come to the palace,” her son says, from his place behind his desk.

“You’ve been avoiding me since the girl’s display at the lake.”

He looks at her with mildly repressed annoyance, but something else. Something uncomfortable. And Baghra wonders, despite herself, what foolishness happened after the girl and Aleksander walked away from her hut that night. And who would be paying for it.

“I’ve been avoiding a war on two fronts. I am occupied.”

“You are making excuses,” Baghra looks around his quarters. At the dark paneling of the walls, reminiscent of a thick forest. Of the ceilings that look like the night sky. It’s a sentimentality of his, one she can’t punish him for.

“Why are you here.”

She sighs, “You are going through with this foolishness.”

“Yes.”

“And if I told you she would grow into her own strength, without it?”

His gaze darts up as he folds a letter neatly into thirds, “It wouldn’t matter.”

“You know it binds her to you.”

Something sparks in his expression then. Something… close enough to wistful. That seems at home with the walls painted like trees and ceilings resembling the night skies.  “I’m aware.”

Baghra takes a deep, steadying breath. Before she nods. And leaves without another word.

\--

She has contacts in Sulli. It seems she will have to make use of them. She does not deny her son much, but she is capable of it when it is for his own good.

\--

She plans. Aleksander will be leaving shortly after the Winter Fete to return to the front lines and run the Grisha campaigns. His absence, and the absence of his _oprichniki_ will be the best time to have her leave the palace.

She can only hope that the girl isn’t as foolish as she seems to be. But if she is, Baghra is perfectly capable of following through with sending her in a crate to Fjerda.

\--

The night of the Winter Fete arrives without any major incident. It is one of the few events where Baghra is extended an invitation to the Grand Palace, to greet the court nobility as something of a trivial novelty. It’s an opulent waste of talent and resources. And she expects it to be a bore.

She does not expect a memory, cold and painful and raw, to become a reality.

 

**v.**

The night passes uneventfully. The students and full-fledged Grisha alike dither like children playing dress-up, going from noble to noble and dancing waltz after waltz in their _kefta._ Drinking too much champagne, more than likely enough to remind the older ones that they are not in the very home of the man who sends so many of them to their deaths on a weekly basis.

Baghra has no desire for parties. Less desire for dances. She does, however, have a penchant for making people uncomfortable. And no one is as unsettled as nobles when she saunters through the halls—she even overhears one whisper that damnable rumor about her having rooster feet. Baghra is there long enough for a glass of champagne and an appearance for the King’s sake before she prepares to leave as quickly as she arrived—she is unimpressed with the little _display_ her students are providing for the court’s benefit.

She stops, however, when she sees her son move towards the stairs of the platform. With a girl on his arm. A girl in a black _kefta._

She would scoff at the clear demonstration of _territory_ Aleksander has made if the circumstances were not so dire. If that invisible, tugging _snag_ had left her at any point following the girl’s arrival to Os Alta. But it hadn’t, and the matching black left no room for amusement. Only foreboding. Only this intrinsic, unvoiced sensation that something was not _right_ with her presence.

Baghra moves towards the pillars, hidden in shadows. And watches, out of curiosity if anything. She listens, as the orchestra begins the opening notes and rolls her eyes before downing the rest of her champagne, stare traveling and focusing on where her son stands beside the girl.

Aleksander is…smiling. He is smiling and it is the same, cryptic smile he gave when Baghra asked him of his plans. Her fingers tighten on the flute in her hand.

He claps his hands together, and the boom echoes throughout the hall. Baghra is the only one who does not jump or startle at the sudden darkness. She keeps her stare trained coolly.

A beam of golden light pierces the darkness. Hits the mirrors. The nobles gasp, like the marionettes they are on the Darkling’s stage.

But then, something changes. Something shifts.

 ( _He lays on the bale of hay, staring at a glove in his hand. She doesn’t know where he’s lost the other one, but she notices that the remaining one holds a new design—what looks like a golden eclipse, embroidered into the fabric._

_“Madraya?”_

_“Yes.”_

_“Maybe we should stay longer in the valley.”_

_She scowls, “Why.”_

_He mimics the expression, though fueled more by confusion than anything, “…I don’t know yet.”_ )

The ribbons of light disappear from the room, plunging them back into darkness.

( _“Where were you?!” she demands when he comes back to their room at the inn. It is late enough that the sun is peeking out from the tree line, and she brings her hands to the sides of his face, tilting his head and looking for injuries._

_He shakes free of her grip with an exasperation befitting of a seventeen year old, “I was. Out.”_

_She uncoils, feeling her chest unconstrict as her worst fears are put aside for petty annoyances, “With the girl.”_

_“Her name’s_ Alina _.”_ )

And then the light expands and bursts: a glowing halo encompassing both the figures on the stage. Figures that look like they belong together.

( _“She’s a Sun Summoner.”_

_Baghra’s hands stop from skinning the rabbit, “Don’t be foolish.”_

_“I’m not. She-“_

_“Don’t. Be foolish, Aleksander.”_ )

Her son stretched out his hand, black tendrils of shadow uncurling from his palm to integrate with the girl— _Alina_ ’s---own summoned light. Dancing, twirling. Balancing. The grip Baghra has on the flute goes lax.

( _He’s gone one morning. And while she doesn’t initially panic—he has been spending_ far _too much time with the embroiderer lately—she later finds the note and fear, real_ fear, _hits her:_

 ** _I am going to get the Firebird._** )

She sees Aleksander whisper something to her.

( _He isn’t the same, after the valley. He is quieter. Sullen. He has killed that butcher boy, pushed him off the cliff right after the girl fell off of it first, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that he is withdrawing from_ her, _that he is going off more and more on his own._

_He talks about trying to see the world on his own. And, because she thinks it will ultimately be good for him to fend for himself, to see other valleys, she reluctantly lets him and packs her own things for Kerch.)_

The court applauds, raucous noises that reverberate throughout the ballroom.

( _“They say there’s rebellion in Ravka,” the mercenary she is beating at cards grumbles, as he places more gold on the counter, “The Grisha are making their own army, can you believe that?”_

 _Baghra’s hands still on the table, “_ Where _in Ravka?”_

_“Uh. Kribirsk, I think.”)_

The room explodes in golden light, blinding and painful and Baghra’s glass drops to the floor as the performance ends.

( _He looks out the window of their carriage, his fists resting on his knees. And, if the valley had not ruined him enough, whatever happened in the bowels of Kribirsk has put him beyond repair._

_“She killed herself,” he whispers, a croak. A confession._

_Baghra doesn’t know what to say to that. She knows, too much, about watching irreplaceable people die because of impulsive decisions._

_Aleksander turns, facing her and she is surprised to see_ pain, _real pain, eternal pain, etched into the furrow of his brow. The clench of the jaw. There is something broken and voided in her son now. Something lost in that gaping void he has created in his foolishness._

_“She had whatever she wanted from me. It wasn’t enough,” he looks out the window again, “It didn’t matter.”_

_Baghra shakes her head, “What happened goes beyond the girl-”_

_“Her name was Alina,” he watches, as the gates of Os Alta come into view, “And you’re right,” his eyes drift to the spires of the Grand Palace, his voice heavy with dark promise, “It did. And it will.”_ )

And he has her hand, dragging her through the crowd as she struggles to keep up. Invisible in the shadows, if his mother did not know where to look. And she sees that desperation, she hears that name in her head, over and over and over again.

The girl is…

Baghra remembers. She remembers Sun Summoners. She remembers the effects they have on her son. And she does not know how this has happened, how this has repeated again, but _merzost_ has damned the all in so many ways that she knows not to argue against it.

…and she also knows that she cannot wait until after the Fete.

She knows that Alina needs to leave Os Alta _tonight._ And she thinks she knows how she can convince her, if any shred of that girl from the valley remains in the orphan from Keramzin.

\--

When Baghra goes to the Little Palace, when Baghra tells the Sun Summoner the truth and leads her out of Os Alta with only a solitary candle for light, she calls her by her name for the first time.  When Alina's finally out of sight, she collapses against the wall and takes deep, staggering breaths.

And hopes she has avoided ruin.

 

**vi.**

It does not take long for the Ivan to find her in her hut. An hour, maybe.

“Get up,” he says, and he does not smirk or bow.

Baghra looks at him flatly, “You don’t command me, boy.”

“The Darkling will see you.”

“Will he now?”

“ _Yes._ ”

The Corporalki grabs her by her arm, and Baghra allows herself to be led.

\--

She is surprised when the Corporalki leads her to the rooms she was in not even two hours ago. The Sun Summoner’s rooms. _Alina’s_ rooms. And she feels a dark, grim sort of amusement when Ivan opens the door and her son is already waiting inside.

_Your dark prince did come to you tonight after all, you foolish, foolish girl._

Aleksander does not look at her, he only paces the expanse of the bedroom, stopping when he gets to the girl’s vanity. His fingers trail over the golden pins as a thoughtful frown crosses his face.

“Leave us,” he commands the Ivan, who bows and drops Baghra as if she is hot coals. Who shuts the door behind him.

Baghra is not afraid of her son. She has never been afraid of her son. But something in his stance, in the way he does not look away from the hairpins, gives her pause.

“Do you know whose room this is?” He asks, though they both know the answer.

Baghra snorts, “I told you not to patronize me, boy.”

Slowly, he nods, taking a pin in his hand and tucking it into his _kefta—_ still the silk one from the Fete. He walks to Alina’s wardrobe, clasping his arms behind his back, “...Alina was not seen after the celebration.”

Baghra stays silent, as Aleksander drops his arms. As his fingers drift over the _kefta_ the Sun Summoner left behind on hangers. As he counts them.

“She did not pack her things.”

She sees it again. That look, from so very long ago. That ancient, desperate madness swimming in quiet currents underneath Aleksander’s calm exterior.

“So I imagine her decision to flee the Little Palace was…impromptu.”

“I don’t control what your pet Sun Summoner does.”

His fingers still on a navy blue _kefta_ , curl into a fist. He still has not faced her.

“Of course you don’t,” his eyes narrow. She sees his nostrils flare as he takes a deep breath, “I am. Disappointed, _madraya._ ”

And because she already knows, already _understands_ what will come to pass, she does not try to make amends, “So am I, Aleksander.”

He closes his eyes.

“I have waited so long. And I did not expect betrayal from _you_ , of all people,” the Darkling swallows. But his voice is even. His hands don’t shake, “You may have cost me something I can’t replace.”

He turns, and his gaze meet hers. He stares straight into her, does not break the connection between their eyes.

“It seems only fair that I return the favor.”

\--

Baghra is not afraid of her son.  
She is not afraid of the dark.

Now, they are all she has.


	9. The Third Life: Old Women (part ii)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not much alarkling romance in this one, sorry! Hopefully it’s still enjoyable :P Also a good deal of dialogue is lifted directly from Siege and Storm and Ruin and Rising.

**vii.**

Her son takes her eyes and brings her a child in return.

And it’s a boring one.

“Would you like more soup,” he asks with a tiny little sigh. Like the burdens of attending to an old woman far surpass anything else that might lay beyond the walls of her hut.

Baghra, who does not have patience for tiny little sighs from tiny little boys, smacks the spot next to his feet with her cane. It makes a sharp _crack_ , and she hears the intake of breath and the spasm of motion from the boy as he jumps away from it.

“Missed,” she says dryly, though she knows she hasn’t.

That tiny little sigh becomes a more troubled swallow. Good.

“I will tell you when I want something. Then you’ll bring it to me. Now, grab the red book on the top shelf and read it to me, boy.”

“My name is Misha,” he offers, as she hears him climb on top of a chair to reach the top shelf.

Baghra snorts, “So even your name is unremarkable.”

Silence fills the room. Before the boy clears his throat and begins to reading.

She slams her cane against the floor again, “Where the bookmark is, fool.”

And Baghra hears, once more, a tiny sigh. But the boy opens the book to the middle and starts again.

His voice is monotonous, he pauses in all the wrong places, and any word longer than a syllable is mispronounced.

Baghra tries to enjoy reading again.

\--

When the boring child isn’t there, she sits by herself. And in the dark, in her own thoughts, she wonders. About a fool who should be in Novyi Zem, but more than likely won’t stay there. About checks and balances and retribution. About what the payment should be for what has been stolen.

\--

“Where are my students,” she asks, though she already knows the answer.

“…you aren’t allowed them,” the boy replies carefully, turning a new page.

Baghra snorts, “And who, pray, is going to keep them out if they come?”

The boy is silence is mystified—for who would want to visit _her_ —but he finally turns another page in the book he has been butchering, “Me, I guess.”

Baghra feels the laugh escape her throat, like a blunted knife. A boy is her keeper. A boy is her jailer.

The Darkling does so love his irony.

\--                                                   

The boring boy ruins another chapter.

And as Baghra hears him mispronounce another name ( _Zh_ enka, not _Gen_ ka, that oaf), she thinks maybe now it is just time for her to finally die. It would be better than having to hear another terrible story in a voice flatter than unrisen bread.

\--

“Were you not content at just ruining my books?” She snarls, spitting back into her bowl.

“What?”

“You ruined my soup, witless child!”

“I made it with beets like you asked-“

“Next time,” Baghra pushes the bowl away from her, upper lip curling in disgust, “Don’t be inept and just put poison in the broth.”

\--

In the dark, that’s all she allows to bother her: a heroine’s name mispronounced, a soup made of salt. She does not care about the schism of the Second Army, the return of a bastard prince, or the rumors of a living Saint escaping from the Unsea. Such nonsense has happened before (and _before_ , but she doesn’t dwell on that either), and it is not as great of an assault upon her as the acrid taste of burned beets on her tongue.

But then a little fool had to arrive uninvited, and once again let all of the heat out of her house.

 

**viii.**

Baghra’s hands ache from an arthritis she has suddenly gained, but she forces old fingers to trail the smooth planes of bone around the girl’s neck. She knows these bones, like she would know an old, stained photograph: silver, belonging to a stag with fur white as snow. A piece of something that never belonged to her, but nevertheless she felt kinship to it.

“I would have liked to see his stag,” she whispers, not to the girl in front of her, but to the one within that memory. The daughter of a mad man. The child who shared a name with the creature whose bones lay around this girl’s neck.

The wonder ends quickly, as the girl then brings Baghra’s pained hands to the fetter around her wrist.

Rusalye. The prince. Baghra’s heart threatens to finally abandon the sunken container that has been carrying it.

The exchange she has with the girl (with the Little Saint, the Sun Summoner, _Alina,_ how many crowns will she wear? How many times will her presence mark a ruining?) comes heated and fast, and when she learns what other lines the Darkling (her son) has crossed (they are not meant to _create_ , they were never meant to breathe life into what is gone) she decides that now, _now_ it is truly time for her to rot. For this wretched earth only begets more of its like.

“ _Get out,_ ” she spits at the child who is not a child, who does not know what she has done to them all. Who wants to go back to where it began, back to the valley and back to the amplifier she was promised before she was even born, a promise made by a naïve boy who was not yet a monster.

The girl protests, but Baghra does not hear her. She hears nothing but memories: two girls playing, a stag bowing, a man bent over his desk, desperately writing into journals, his fingers permanently stained black from ink. A boy with light grey eyes, thirsty for his own place. Thirsty for power.

The door to her hut swings open, then closed. And Baghra smiles cruelly into a fire she cannot see.

_Will you take me too, Little Saint? When it’s over, will you pry the ribs from my chest and wear them as a crown?_

\--

After she leaves, the Little Saint tries other ways to buy her way to the Firebird: a room in the Palace, a trip to Keramzin with the other students.

Baghra sends them all away. This hut is her place, hard-won and hard-fought. This is where she will die.

And hopefully, this is where she will stay dead.

**vix.**

Hope, it turns out, is still worthless in Ravka. The boy is sitting across from her, tonelessly massacring one of her favorite books of poetry, when the bells sound.

One ring. Two. And Baghra folds her hands over the top of her cane.

She’s heard the bells before. Decades ago, perhaps centuries.

So. It seems her son’s decided to return home.

“What’s that?” The boy asks, sounding a little less bored (for once).

“Nothing,” Baghra mutters, “Keep reading.”

Her son has already had an opportunity to kill her, after all. He didn’t take it. And she knows, deep down, that he is only here for one person tonight, and it isn’t her.

“I can’t-“

“Sit,” Baghra demands, voice like gravel, “And read.”

The bells ring, faster and faster. There’s the distant sounds of yelling. She keeps her fingers wrapped around the top of her cane.

The boy reads, his voice shaking. The two of them sit in the confines of her hut, apart from the madness, and she is resigned to remain doing so until the door to her hut blows open.

“Shut the door,” she growls, “You’re letting the heat out.”

“I’m afraid I have bigger concerns this evening, though I apologize for disturbing your insulation.”

The voice is masculine, polished. She recognizes it, though she’s not sure from where. The insincerity of his apology immediately pegs him as a noble. She hears booted feet cross the floor of the hut, and the drawn noise of the boy taking a gasp.

“Prince Nikolai-“

“Yes, unexpected, I know. If you could follow me?”

Baghra hears the boy’s feet scuffle across the floor. So much for loyalty. Baghra’s lips press tight. Outside, she hears the boy’s voice, yelling for his mother—then screaming. She sighs. Old games. Familiar losses.

“What do you want,” she finally mutters.

The boots of the intruder grow closer to her, “The palace is under attack by the Darkling’s forces.”

Baghra snorts.

The bastard prince hesitates, but clears his throat, “And I’ve come to provide the dashing rescue.”

“Don’t you need to be a real prince for that, mutt?”

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to stop your flattery. An invasion is hardly _apropos_ for a marriage proposal, no matter how smitten you might make me.”

She snorts, “And here I thought poor marriage proposals were a skill of yours.”

“Please, enough, or I’ll drop to a knee now.”

“Save yourself the embarrassment of a second rejection this month, mutt, and leave me.”

Baghra can hear the bastard grind his teeth, followed quickly by a calming inhale as a gloved hand lands in the crook of her elbow. She swats at him with her cane, but the mutt is quick and steps around it.

“While the prospect is nearly as tempting as the proposal,” a masculine voice says far too close to Baghra’s ear as she’s steered out of the hut, “I’m afraid I’ve unfortunately decided to become a man of my word this evening.”

“Is that so?” Baghra mutters, “Hmph. Maybe you are a Lantsov after all. They’re always known for their weak chins and weaker foresight.”

The fingers on the crook of her arm flex tight for a moment, “Truly, where have you been all my life you delightful creature.”

“In the hut you insist on taking me from.”

“Even princes know when to heed the words of a Saint.”

Baghra frowns, her fingers tightening on her cane, “The girl sent you?”

“More like commanded as a legion of shadow monsters descended upon an otherwise lovely dinner, but yes, that is the gist of it.”

She hears the tremor in his voice, and is surprised to find herself sympathizing with it as she continues to allow herself to be escorted, “You afraid, mutt?”

A pause. Followed by a light chuckle, and oh what a slippery one this bastard is, “Only on special occasions. It _is_ my birthday, you know.”

“Explains the wrinkles.”

“Now I’m certain you’re blind.”

A scream pierces the air, shrill and loud: a woman’s. The mutt doesn’t pause in his step, not even when more join it, and Bagha has a grudging admiration with his ability to walk, at the very least. The sound of something _cracking_ fills the air, and Baghra’s lips press into an even tighter line.

“You have the boy?” She spits out.

“Your servant? Small fellow, far more agreeable?”

“Yes or no, mutt.”

“We have him, and I must say this concern is sincerely moving. Dare I say that I am seeing a vulnerable side to the harpy of the Little Palace?”

“Hardly,” Baghra hears the leathery sound of wings, the piercing screams. The feel of like calling to like. The Darkling does favor his _entrances,_ and she hopes that fool girl finally managed the simple act of running, “His horrid voice is the only thing that puts me to sleep.”

The hands around her waist make her tense, before she feels her body being lifted up and placed on a seat. She frowns, listening for the noise of horses, and hearing none.

“Don’t worry,” the mutt says and she has the distinct impression that he is winking, “Your secret’s safe with me.”

“Where’s the girl,” she demands, listening as more screams fill the air. Near to her, she hears children crying.

She expects a perfumed quip, so the frankness of the bastard’s next statement surprises her.

“She is going to the Little Palace,” the mutt says after a few moments.

Baghra closes her eyes more out of habit than need, and breathes deeply. The Little Palace. The direction with the most screams. And no doubt where the Darkling will be. She exhales, “Idiot.”

The bastard’s hands withdraw from her. He hesitates for a few moments beside her, before finally speaking, his tone tight. “Unfortunately. And I’ll admit that I’ve been finding myself considering a ban on martyrdom,” he clears his throat, and his voice lightens, “Please stay seated, my dear crone. I’m afraid the flight may be uneasy for newcomers.”

“Flight? What are you on about, mutt-?”

A quick, condescending pat to her cheek, and the second prince of Ravka is gone.

\--

She stays seated as they ascend. Does not move as a wave of _merzost’s_ spawn fly at the ship or whatever foul device she finds herself on. Does not turn her head when the screams sound in her ear, undoubtedly belonging to members of the prince’s retinue.

The Grisha students cry.

“Boy?” She commands out into the distance.

“Yes?” Her servant says from somewhere behind her, voice tight with tears.

“Read to the brats. Their sniveling is getting old.”

For the rest of the flight, to whatever location this mutt is taking them, Misha’s voice sounds out over the screams, telling a story of a cruel old witch who stole eggs but granted wishes. Who lived in a travelling hut. She feels the stares of the children on her as they nervously giggle, but it’s just as well, for at least that’s easier to ignore than their piercing shrieks. And children in a panic are likely to make things worse on this already nauseating flight.

\--

Baghra closes her eyes, this time from a weight outside of herself, and wonders who will emerge victorious from the crumbling Little Palace: a foolish Saint?

Or a mad Heretic.

 

**x.**

The answer, it turns out, is neither. The girl goes to ground. The Darkling is nowhere to be found. Baghra has been alive long enough to realize that whatever happened between the two was only the beginning of their end. If they will ever have a proper one.

News comes to the wretched, cold monastery the prince has put them in. The Little Palace was all but destroyed. Several Grisha are dead. Monsters have been made. A girl has been tortured. And her son sits on the throne.

She wishes she did not feel relief. But a mother’s weakness is never-ending.

The boy cries almost every night.

Perhaps a son’s weakness is never-ending as well.

\--

“Something has been weighing on my mind.”

Baghra grinds her teeth together, “It explains why it hasn’t flown away.”

“Biting as ever,” the mutt drawls from his seat across from her, “And after all the effort I put into making your room nice.”

“It’s too cold.”

“Liar. A prince doesn’t sweat, but if he did, this shirt would be ruined.”

“Spit it out.”

Nikolai releases a low sigh, shuffling his weight, “Remind me to bring you to the next War Council. You’ll be a sensation in negotiations.”

She almost smirks, but stops herself. The mutt is grating, and pompous, and a peacock of a boy with too many feathers puffed out, but there is something…tolerable, about him. Too often, he reminds her of the girl: too stubborn to be cast aside.

“Ask your question, mutt. I’m choking on your perfume.”

“ _Cologne_ is the word you’re looking for _,_ and we both know I have no need for it, so you’re hardly _choking_. But I suppose I can appreciate a straightforward approach,” he pauses, drumming his fingers on something—most likely a chair arm, “You trained Alina.”

“As much as she would allow herself to be trained.”

“Did you train the Darkling?”

Baghra stokes the fire with the end of her cane. Tolerable. Stubborn. And too clever for his own good, “…as much as he would allow himself to listen.”

“You care for them.”

 _Them._ She swallows, “Ask your real question, whelp.”

“Very well. What is your relationship with the Darkling?”

Baghra tries to remember his face. Instead all she sees is a boy, with wide grey eyes and a shock of black hair. His smile a shy and guarded thing. His face faded in her memory. The face of an older and colder man being the last thing she ever saw.

He has taken too much from her. He has not taken enough.  
Mothers do not forget easily. And there is not much left she can forgive.

“My son.”

Silence blankets the room, save for the cracking of birch bark as it feeds the flames.

“I expected as much,” the mutt says softly, “There is a resemblance. If you’re looking for such things.”

No doubt he was, this bastard prince. No doubt he was experienced in searching faces for something familiar.

“Is that all?” Baghra asks the fire she cannot see.

“No,” the prince continues, “I know one must never ask a lady her age, but…”

“Old enough,” Baghra whispers, “Far old enough. My son is not much younger, in the scheme of things.”

“I see. And can you-?”

She remembers her shadows. Remembers the elation of curling them into her palm, “No.”

“And his motive for finding Alina?”

Ah, there it is. This prince is slippery, but not slippery enough. And Baghra shakes her head. She is so tired of foolish, infatuated children.

“My son knows power and opportunity when he sees it. And he has been waiting for much longer than he believes,” she inhales, “As for the rest, time is a fickle thing. Memories even more so. And I think…” the logs hiss, Baghra feels the heat swell into a burst in front of her, “That theirs is a long game you had best avoid, _otkazat’sya._ ”

“Or?”

“Or you pick your own consequences,” she turns, so the mutt can see her eyes. See the shadowed pits that have replaced them.

“Hm,” the whelp murmurs, “I suppose I should thank you for being so forth-coming.”

“But you won’t.”

“Who knows? The war is young,” there’s the rustling of cloth, and she imagines the prince is pulling himself into a stand, “Enjoy your…lurking.”

“ _Silence_ is always appreciated.”

“I clearly beg to differ, but as they say, misery has no company,” his footsteps echo as he crosses the room, and Baghra hears the door to her chamber open. The prince is nearly to the stairs when she hears him speak again, “In case it’s of interest to you, there are rumors of the Sun Summoner making her way through the woods.”

“Off to play hero, then.”

“Not to boast, but I _have_ nearly perfected my dashing entrance.”

“Start by practicing your exit.”

“Again, you are such a delight. Remind me to name you godmother to any potential heirs.”

“First you need an accepted proposal.”

“Right for the jugular, as always. Sleep well, Baghra. Keep the invasion of small children’s nightmares to a minimum.”

“You’re letting out the heat.”

A muted groan, and the door closes.

Baghra sits alone in the darkness, and allows herself to think on the fool girl. She did not expect Alina to resist the Darkling when he came to take her. That she has…

It is a very rare occurrence, but Baghra has been wrong before. Perhaps this is the time it ends differently.

 

**xi.**

When she sees the girl again, something has changed. No less a fool, but a different one. And Baghra listens as the Sun Summoner tells her of her plans. Her resolve. The darkness that lies ahead of them all.

Part of her is…pleased, that the girl has survived so long this time. And there is betrayal in that, in finding satisfaction in the survival of the one who is most likely to kill her son. In one who has every potential to walk the same path, should she emerge the victor in this strange, endless war between them.

The girl tells her of the journals, and it is then that Baghra almost asks. Almost tells the girl the beginning of the tale of Dva Stolba. The dangers in looking for a Firebird once more. She almost asks what her son remembers of the Sun Summoner, if he remembers anything at all.

But they are interrupted by a knock at the door and a voice that unsettles her very bones.

“ _Moi soverenyi_.”

She _knows_ that voice. Nearly as well as she would know the voice of her son. She has heard it, lifetimes ago. In the cellar of a cottage. In the meadow of a stag. In the store of a butcher. Baghra frowns, reaching out to grab whatever she can of the girl.

“Who is that?”

“The captain of my guard.”

Her heart slows in her chest, “Grisha?”

The girl’s voice is troubled, “No, _otkazats’ya_.”

Baghra’s words, for once, have difficulty leaving her tongue, “He sounds-“

And she does not get to finish that sentence. As the girl makes her apologies, and exits the room as quickly as she entered.

Had she been able to think it, to say it, Baghra knows the missing piece of a long-started puzzle would have slid into place for the both of them.

_He sounds like Morozova._

But, as always, she is just a little too late.

\--

“My favorite hag,” the prince says a few days later, and Baghra catches the muted smell of lemon in his direction, “I hope you like tea.”

“Is it poisoned.”

She’s surprised by the tenseness in his voice, “Poison has been quite the controversial topic lately. Kind of you to ask. But no, it’s not poisoned.”

“Serve it, then.”

“You do know I am still a prince?”

“I know there’s no throne here and the boy is out playing with swords.”

“It’s so difficult to understand why you’re unattached,” the mutt says affably. Baghra listens as he arranges porcelain, until he gently puts his hand over hers and guides it to her cup.

She waits until he withdraws before putting it to her lips. It’s bitter. Strong flavors hit her tongue. And she would be more unnerved that this mongrel knows how to make her tea, if she did not already have her suspicions to his intellect. She hates clever men nearly as much as she hates infatuated ones.

“Speaking of attachments-“ he begins.

“You are the only one speaking of attachments.”

“-I thought you should be the first to know that I intend to make myself a fool once more.”

Baghra sips slowly, “You waste my time for the obvious?”

“To be fair, your time is mostly spent sitting in front of a fire in a dark room. But regardless, I felt it prudent to seek your counsel before proceeding.”

“Is it foolish?”

“Remarkably so.”

“Then don’t.”

The mutt laughs, and she hears him lean back in the chair he has accustomed himself to. After a few moments of silence, his voice becomes series, “I am going to propose.”

And there it is again. Baghra closes her eyes, “To the girl.”

“Yes.”

“How is this different then the first time.”

“This time she may actually agree,” there’s an awkwardness to his words that is not normally present, an uncertainty mixed with the smallest amount of hope and this poor, idiotic clever bastard, “I’ve been told armies make for irresistible engagement gifts.”

“She may become worse than my son, should she get the Firebird.”

The clink of porcelain. The prince sighs, “Yes, I imagine so. But…”

“You’re foolish.”

“Desperate, maybe.”

“She will outlive you. She will outlive your heirs. She’s hungry for power, and you’d put her on a throne.”

The prince clears his throat, “It’s been an inconsistent throne as of late. It might help to have routine.”

“Fool.”

“A fool with a favor to ask.”

Baghra’s teeth grind, “I don’t give favors.”

“I want you to train her again.”

“This request was made once before. You can imagine who made it.”

“Yes, and I want him dead.”

The words are heavy in the room. She hears the mutt take a sip of tea. Baghra thinks of her son. Of the girl. Of Morozova, and the _otkazat’sya_ guard captain who sounds too much like him. Of cycles that must be broken, no matter how painful they might be to break.

Alina is the match for her son. Whatever curse Morozova has inflicted upon them has made sure of it. Ilya Morozova had also been a Saint, once. She exhales.

“You think she will accept your proposal.”

“I try not to presume with Alina.”

“She trusts you.”

“In an ideal world, I would like her to.”

Baghra scowls, feels the heaviness in the damning oath she is about to give, “Then I will train her.”

“But?”

“But if she becomes like him, you put a bullet in her head.”

\--

The next day, Baghra teaches Alina how to split mountains. She shows the Sun Summoner how to become an equal to the Darkling.

She prepares the girl to kill her child.

 

**xii.**

Hope has never been kind to those of Morozova’s line. And as such, it has been estranged from Baghra’s thoughts for longer than most family’s lives.

But the girl comes back. And she whispers a name that she should not know, that only the Darkling could have given her. It was a name she thought her son had lost to the hole that was once called Pravdovret, so long ago.

And it’s a name that brings back hope, which is an unwanted feeling that sits heavy in her stomach and dryly on her tongue. The girl says she can give her son redemption, and with that name, Baghra almost thinks it possible. Almost makes herself a fool. Because she still remembers the boy, who would come home from the embroider’s with gold-threaded clothes and a smile. And Baghra knows that love, real love, is something that does not just slip away like water between spread fingers.

She almost tells Alina of the valley, of Dva Stolba.

But Baghra also knows how that story ends. And so instead she tells the girl a different tale, one that affects them no less. A story about a Grisha, who craved knowledge. Of two girls, playing in the yard. Of chains. Of a brilliant and talented boy, that she had known once. That had even tried to bring her the Firebird his grandfather hunted.

Stories do not end. They grow in circles. And those of Morozova: the girl, Aleksander, the _otkazat’sya_ soldier; their lives are but links in chains. They will all fall into the river together, over and over again.  They will all make each other drown. They will die. But _this,_ this last gift from her father, will not.

The girl has tears on her cheeks when Baghra has finished. And it’s just as well. Because the story of Baghra’s family belongs to her, too. It has killed her. It will kill her just as slowly again.

“You know where to go,” Baghra whispers, her fingers curling around the girl’s wrist, “You know where you fell with your own chains.”

The girl looks at her, and Baghra does not see the comprehension bloom in her eyes. But Baghra feels the end of one tale, and the beginning of another.

This story can only end by their own hands closing the book. And Baghra almost laughs.

She should have made the prince promise her something stronger than bullets.

\--

He comes for them.  
She knew he would.

\--

The day she closes her own book begins with her being woken from a nap. Screams and gunfire burst from below her rooms—the sound of leathery wings beating against the windows makes her sit up from her bed.

“Baghra-!” the boy cries in a panic, “They’re here!”

“I’m not deaf,” she mutters, “Just blind. Oaf-child.”

“We need to help them!”

She snorts. Of course the boy sounds like _them_ , even though she can hear his tiny little heart about to burst from across the room.

“Grab my arm, boy,” she demands.

He’s shaking, trembling like a little leaf in the wind, but he does. Brave boy.

\--

They reach the terrace. And Baghra hears, all too clearly, the sound of the mutt’s scream. She stands, feeling herself grow colder as that scream becomes that of an animal’s.

Her boy still makes monsters from men. Still kills out of petty jealousy. Her boy heard so much, but learned so little.

And the girl—Alina—she is not ready. She cannot do what needs to be done.

Baghra breathes, and before she steps from her place under the archway, she extends her hands. It comes slowly at first, that call of like to like, but come it does. These monsters belong to her son, and so they can just as easily belong to her.

As she calls them, as they still underneath her invisible grasp, she hears it. Their sorrows, forgotten from so long ago, covered by hunger. He has poisoned this earth, and she had let him. Because a mother’s weakness is never over.

“ _Abomination_ ,” she whispers. It is the only thing she can call him now. It is the only thing he earns, as she hears the girl screaming for her ruined prince.

Baghra tightens her grip on the boy’s shoulder, “Guide me.”

He does. He whimpers with every step, but he does. And Baghra listens as her son tells her to go back inside. She snorts. He is always trying to give her orders.

When she gets as close as she needs, she pats the boy on the cheek, “Go on, boy, run to the scrawny Saint,” he hesitates, but when she orders again, he goes. She waits until his small feet sound far enough away before she shakes her head.

Misha.  
It’s still an unremarkable name, but she supposes she’ll have to take it with her.

She meets the monsters of Aleksander Morozova. She feels her power, unused and exposed, cresting over her son’s like a wave. For once, she does not feel the constant chill to her bones. It has been so long. It has not been long enough. But it is something she knows intimately. _I’m sorry,_ she whispers to that dark place within her, _I have left you for too long._

And when her son says he will not fight her, she knows that too. Part of him is afraid. And Baghra realizes that Aleksander is someone else who has been forgotten for too long.

Shadows whip around her, and they point her to who she needs to speak to. Through the darkness, through the chains that bind them together, Baghra finds Alina. She, too, is steeped in fear. But it is different than the one that drowns her son.

“Girl,” she commands, “Don’t fail me again.”

Because stories do not end. But this one should. And hope has never been kind to those of Morozova’s line, but Baghra is not a kind woman, and she has never appreciated kindness in return.

Circles always come around. Paths are always retraced.

Baghra uses her chains, the skeins of darkness flooding from her, to find the ledge. To wrap up his monsters.

Once, a man lost his family.  
Once, a girl was thrown into a river.  
Once, a girl fell from a cliff.  
Once, a boy lost his name.

Circles always come around.

Baghra takes a deep breath. The scrawny Saint has her faith. She does not entirely think she has misplaced it this time. And there is only one way to save her.

“Know that I loved you,” she feels the hearts of every creature in her grasp. She holds the heaviness of a book cover, being closed. They always did enjoy stories, her and that grey-eyed boy.

“Know that it was not enough.”

Baghra pushes herself up the wall, and she bows her head as she falls over it.

The _nichevo’ya_ and his scream follows her down.

It’s a comfort, before she hits the rocks, to know that her son’s weakness also never ended.

 

**xiii.**

She doesn’t trust this place. It’s too _big_ —the windows are too bright, the furniture is too clean. The art on the walls is ugly. And she doesn’t like the chandelier, hanging above her head and sparkling with tiny rainbows.

It feels like a trick. And the girl, above almost anything else, hates being treated like she’s an idiot.

“Try to smile,” the governess beside her says, and the girl decides she doesn’t like her either. She’s in a grey dress, the collar buttoned up all the way to her chin, and the girl think she looks rather like an ostrich, especially with the feathered shawl around her shoulders, “The Duchess has been very kind to you, the least you can do is smile when you meet her. And straighten your back. Bad posture is very unbecoming of a young lady.”

The girl looks up, but only to Observe. And Observe she does. As they walk down the halls with the ugly art (lopsided suns, spidery trees), the girl sees rows and rows of photographs: children, like her. Orphans. Charities.

And the girl almost trips when she sees another one, in black and white: a scrawny woman, with her hair unbound around her shoulders. Beside her is a large man, his jaw scarred and covered in stubble, an arm around her shoulders.

“The Duchess and late Duke,” the governess says, a trill in her voice that reminds the girl just how bird-like she is, “He was a handsome man, you know.”

“I don’t care.”

The governess gives a huff of frustration, before she stops in front of a door. On the other side of it, there’s the sound of mediocre piano playing. Before the girl walks through, the governess stops her with a firm hand on her shoulder.

“Remember, _smile._ And be _kind_ ,” she says the words slowly, as if that would give them more of a chance to become true.

The girl scowls. And opens the door without knocking as the governess pales in horror.

This room is less ugly than the others, but not by much. The furniture is old. The piano is even older. And the woman playing it is the oldest.

The Duchess does not look like a Duchess. She looks _ancient._ Like a skeleton. The girl did not think people could live to be _so old._ Her white hair is loose around her shoulders. Her face wrinkled. Her hands look young enough, though the girl notices that an ugly scar is across the palm of one of them.

The Duchess turns. And smiles.

The girl smiles back, though only just a little. Because she still doesn’t think this place is real. Hoping for things almost always led to disappointment when one was an orphan.

“You must be the new arrival from Kribirsk,” the Duchess says, thankfully stopping her dreadful piano playing and turning on the bench.

“You’re too old to run an orphanage.”

The governess makes a strangled noise.

The Duchess only snorts, “Shut the door, Natalia, you’re letting the heat out.”

The governess does so, dipping her head with a troubled frown. The girl likes the old woman a little bit more.

The Duchess stands, and the girl waits for the noise of every bone breaking. It doesn’t happen. Maybe she isn’t as old as she thought. The owner of the mansion, the girl’s new home, takes a few steps forward, eyebrows raised. The girl thinks she sees an amused smile tugging at the corners of her wrinkled lips. And the girl doesn’t know why, as she doesn’t believe she’s been that amusing.

“Go on, introduce yourself,” the girl’s governess requests in a panic, her voice tight with desperation.

The girl scowls, frowning at the ugly, old piano, “…My name’s Baghra.”

The Duchess goes very, very still. For a minute the girl thinks she’s died on the spot, as old people probably do. But then she speaks again, her voice an awed whisper.

“…Welcome to Keramzin, Baghra,” the girl tilts up her head, and eyes as black as pitch meet light brown ones, “My name’s Alina.”

\--

Circles always come around.

\--

 **Up Next:** The Queen


	10. The Fourth Life: The Queen (part i)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shows up 6 months late with starbucks.
> 
> sob so sorry for the delay, i've been in a massive funk with the fic. hopefully this gets the wheels turning! feedback, as always, is greatly appreciated.

**o.**

He put a darkness in her.  
So she gave him something of her own.  
Thisness, Thatness.  
Lost things will always find a new home.

**The Fourth Life: The Queen**

**i.**

The good Duke and Duchess discovered there was more to their daughter than they had hoped when she was six years old. It had been an average hosting season for their estate, and the spring social calls were drawing to a close following a final feast with the visiting Baron Golovin. Dinner had been a simple affair (he was only a _Baron_ after all) of roast boar and jellied quail, and the men were enjoying a post-meal cigar in the smoking room when they heard a woman’s scream from down the hall.

Initially the two men (Duke and Baron, respectively) had themselves a good, nervous chuckle: no doubt the stresses of the season were getting to them all--especially the Duchess, who, as was well known in court, tended to lend herself to neuroses more often than not, and had in fact canceled an appointment with the official portrait painter earlier that month following a depressive episode inspired by a rather distasteful haircut.

But then the scream sounded again, and the cigars and chuckles were quickly forgotten.

They ran until they found the Scene: the Duchess, displayed gracefully on the floor in a swan’s swoon of taffeta and silk. The servant woman, holding the Duchess under the arms and wafting smelling salts underneath her nose. The cook, holding a lemon cake between his two beefy but uncharacteristically shaking hands. The Baron’s wife, in a far less dignified heap on the ground.

The Duke’s daughter, wide-eyed and far paler than fashion would have allowed, her arms hanging limply at her side.  
The Baron’s seven-year old son, severed diagonally in half.

The Baron tripped over his wife to hold what was left of the boy.  
The Duke looked at his girl, whose eyes filled with tears.

The lemon cake fell to the ground.

\--

The indiscretion was later resolved with a generous land donation to Baron Golovin’s estate.

\--

The Duke and Duchess then had to form a plan. Clearly, they could not in good conscience hand over the girl to an eligible suitor in marriage if she remained in this state. The poor, unsuspecting (and no doubt wealthy) man could very well also be sliced in half. Such a scandal would undoubtedly tarnish their reputation at court, and, well, they had just given over the Duchess’s second favorite orange grove in trade for a severed boy, and she was now quite adamant that she was keeping the first.

So they did what all nobility do when in fear of losing influence.

They turned to God.

\--

The Order of Sankta Alina was the most fashionable religion at the time (in fact, the Sankta who died nearly 150 years ago was the namesake of their child because of the babe’s shockingly white hair—the Duchess thought herself quite inspired until she attended the naming ceremonies of a dozen _other_ noble Alinas. The Duchess was then quite despondent when the Duke refused her petition to name their daughter Al _y_ na instead), and naturally it was there they turned first.

(The Duke and Duchess were not aware that there was a crisis in said religion, as there had not been a new Sun Summoner born in the last fifty years, and the handful who were left, born after the Closing of the Fold, were growing older)

“Fix her,” the Duke said, shoving his daughter forward from behind his leg, “And we will build you a new church.”

The clergyman shook his head, “We don’t trade miracles for real estate here.”

The girl said nothing. She looked at the sunburst upon the altar, the gold of it flickering in the candlelight, before looking at the ground.

“But she’s one of _you_ ,” the Duchess pouted, pushing her daughter further forward in a shoo-shoo motion, “Go on, Al _y_ na, show them!”

(It should be noted, that while the Duke refused to change their daughter’s name on paper, it did not stop the Duchess from pronouncing it as she wished.)

The clergyman’s eyes narrowed, “One of us?” He asked, not daring to hope. There had not been a new Sun Summoner born in some time. There were rumors that Sankta Alina’s holy protection was withdrawing from them—that the _Soldat Sol_ had transgressed somehow.

“Do _not_ ,” the Duke hissed under his breath, “Kill this man.”

Alina did not kill that man. Alina did nothing. She remained quiet, staring at the slightly dusty toes of her small, buckled shoes.

The clergyman frowned, crouching down on his knees to kneel before her, “Are you like us, Alina?”

She didn’t look away from the ground.

The clergyman’s lips tilted, “Would it be alright if I held your hand, Alina?”

The girl didn’t say anything, nor did she resist when the clergyman took her small fingers in between his. The clergyman shut his eyes, using his own gift to draw out her own. And a call sounded out.

What answered made him drop her hand as though burned.

“Abomination-“ he hissed out of horrified reflex, standing and retreating as fast as possible, “We will not help you here. Leave!”

“What do you mean-?” shrilled the Duchess.

“You will _fix her_ -!” demanded the Duke.

But the doors of the church swung shut just the same.

\--

The Duke and Duchess then had to form a new plan.   
So they did what all nobles do when presented a difficult problem.

They tried to hire someone else to deal with it.

\--

To fix their child, the Duke offered gold. The Duchess promised silk. Some came: retired soldiers, inspired scholars. All were paid to keep their mouths closed once they arrived and left in failure.

The girl became a secret. The girl became a shame.

\--

The Duke offered land. The Duchess surrendered her favorite orange grove. More came: crooked highwaymen, swindling priests. All failed and were handed over to the King’s authorities.

The girl became a young woman. The young woman became lonely.

\--

The Duke offered his ships. The Duchess began to drink. Fewer came: rival courtiers, misdirected travelers. None tried to help, and were gone shortly.

The young woman would sit in her rooms and come up with stories. Sometimes, she imagined a cure. More often, she imagined an escape.

\--

The Duke, sorrowed and desperate, finally offered his daughter. The Duchess snorted, and started to auction off Alina’s trousseau for tincture (she had stopped with Al _y_ na sometime after daughter’s thirteenth birthday, when she truly realized that uniqueness was not something to be celebrated).

One came.

  
**ii.**

“You’re off-tempo.”

Alina didn’t look behind her, though her jaw tensed just a little. But she kept her attention focused intensely on her fingers as they danced along the ivory keys, as they soured the notes of an otherwise beautiful adagio. She felt the stranger’s stare trained on her hands, her profile, but she ignored it. Just like she ignored her father standing in the corner, twisting his cuffs in anxiety.

“Alina,” the Duke muttered, chastisement in his tone, “Don’t you think it’s time to stop your piano playing and greet our guest?”

Her jaw clenched tighter. Her fingers tripped up on another key. And she scowled, “I believe your guest made it obvious that I should keep practicing.”

“ _Alina._ ”

She recognized that tone. And, as much as she loathed the endless parade of charlatans masquerading as tutors or holy men or healers, she loathed hurting her father more. With a resigned sigh, she stopped her playing, swerving on the bench to face the newcomer whose first words to her had been a critique of her music.

The stranger was handsome, if she was pressed to admit it. Though he looked… _poor._ The stranger wore plain charcoal pants, a wrinkled dress shirt, and a slightly faded waistcoat that was once probably black but now looked to be the same shade as his trousers. By his feet was a worn travel bag. Alina’s nose wrinkled. She certainly hoped he didn’t plan on _staying._

His grey eyes coolly met her own.

The Duke cleared his throat, “My daughter, Alina.”

Alina knew this was where she was supposed to say _charmed,_ or _pleased to meet you._ But in reality, she was neither. So instead she just crossed her arms, and her tone was dry, “The off-tempo pianist.”

The Duke sent his daughter another chastising look, but Alina kept her focus on the man in front of her. And was surprised to see the hint of a grin on the stranger’s face.

He inclined his head, but Alina and the Duke both noticed he didn’t go into a full bow or kiss her hand as custom would dictate, “I am Aleksander, and don’t worry. I also tutor in music.”

Alina’s fingers curled into angry fists in the fabric of her skirts, “I think I will manage without your expertise, _thank you_.”

Aleksander (and what a boring name—the last charlatan had enthusiastically called himself _Mikhail the Roaming Ram_ ), was silent. Though his stare did not waiver from her face. Alina’s eyes narrowed.

“I suppose I will leave you both to better your acquaintance,” the Duke said, signaling to the serving woman to stay in the room as a chaperone before he made a fast retreat, calling over his shoulder “Supper in an hour,” before disappearing entirely.

They stared at each other for a moment. Alina watched him warily, waiting for him to speak. To make grandiose practices, attempt to shove a tonic down her throat, or, as Mikhail the Roaming Ram had done, to make her stare at a candle for hours on end while inhaling some terrible, pungent smoke.

Aleksander the Charlatan said nothing. In fact, his only action was to trail his fingers over the edge of the shelf he stood next to.

Alina scowled. The charlatan seemed focused on ignoring her. So be it.

She smoothed her hands over the silk of her skirts, straightening in her seat, “Let’s make things clear.”

The charlatan paused from where his hands ghosted over one of her favorite figurines—a clear, crystal prism—and turned with an enigmatic smile, “Very well.”

Once more, she waited for him to speak. He didn’t. Her scowl grew, but she took a deep breath and began her usual speech, by this point well-rehearsed, “The trappings of the estate might give you the wrong impression, so let me be clear: we are no longer a rich family. Some ancestral lands were seized by King Nikolai for redistribution to members of the First Army decades ago. Others were traded away, and my father’s shipping industry isn’t making nearly as much coin as it used to now that the aeroships have become accessible.”

Aleksander’s attention was focused on the prism. He turned it a little, so it caught the light from the nearby window. Small rainbows scattered across the room. Alina tried not to unleash her irritation—more for the sake of her father than for the sake of this wandering sycophant.

“Elizaveta-“ she motioned towards the serving woman standing as their chaperone, “Will take you back to the stables and provide you with enough supplies to ride to the next town.”

Thinking their business concluded, and the wanderer not speaking in protest, Alina turned back to her piano. Taking a deep breath, she shook out her fingers and began to play once more. She was about four measures in when long, pale fingers rested over her own.

“What-“

“You play too fast,” the charlatan said as he leaned over her from behind, his head craned down so that he could whisper in her ear, “Follow my lead.”

Not sure what to do other than turn and punch him in the side of the head for his impertinence, Alina allowed him to move their hands together over the keys. The notes filled the air of the room, slow and melodic and Alina decided instantly that this had become her least favorite song and she was never going to play it again.

“No one hired a music tutor,” she finally muttered, their fingers stretching out to make a chord.

“What type of tutor did they hire?” He asked, and his calm voice was enough to make her fingers clench into a fist. He automatically smoothed them to play another chord.

Having enough of this, Alina ripped her hands out from under his. The charlatan removed his hands just in time to avoid her slamming them in the wooden cover for the keys. Alina looked up, glaring into those cold eyes.

“Take what you want and go.”

He stared down at her, the corner of his mouth twitching into a small smile, “What I want…” he took a step back, but she kept her spine rigid, “Is to indulge my curiosity for a while longer.”

And there it was. Alina’s eyes narrowed, “I don’t do parlor tricks, Mister Alexei-“

“Aleksander.”

“I don’t care.”

He smiled tightly, and, to her astonishment, bowed low as custom dictated: a neat, formal bow that effortlessly mimicked the ones courtiers had made on the rare occasion they visited their home, “You never answered my question.”

“What question.”

Something she couldn’t quite define flashed through his eyes, “What type of tutor did they hire, Alina?”

Her lips curled into a frown at the use of her given name, too informal and too bold for a _traveler_ to use without her permission, “Apparently,” she stood, “One with poor manners and poorer sense.”

Without looking back, she made quick work of crossing the expanse of her music room, and slammed the door shut behind her.

\---

“What do you know of the small science, Miss Starkov?” the traveler asked her, his knife cutting easily through his honeyed quail.

Dinner, which had been a strained but genial enough affair between Alina, the charlatan, her father, and Elizaveta, suddenly grew somber.

The Duke frowned in disapproval, “Hardly appropriate conversation for the dinner table, Mister Morozova.”

“Aleksander, if you please,” he said, eyes not leaving her. Alina ignored him in favor of roughly stabbing her potatoes, “And I meant no offense. But I believe our first lesson is tomorrow.”

She scowled, jamming her fork once more into the now mashed substance.

The Duke sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, “If you must know…Alina?”

She couldn’t stop the sneer on her face, “Why don’t we wait until the morning to see if he’s still here. I remember how the last _tutor_ we entertained made off with mother’s silver candlesticks and was never seen again. And the one before that her diamond earrings. And the one before that-”

The Duke groaned, “ _Alina_.”

The traveler only dabbed at his lips with a cloth napkin, seemingly unoffended, “Tomorrow,” he agreed, taking a sip of his sweet, red wine, “And you, your grace? Are you or your wife practitioners? It’s not uncommon for certain gifts to be passed down bloodlines.”

The stillness in the room quickly took on an entirely different form.

“Lineage _,_ ” the Duke said tersely around a delicate bite of pear, “is _far_ from an appropriate conversation for the dinner table.”

“I was not aware lineage was a matter of concern.”

“Youare too _**bold**_ for one of your station, nevertheless as one of my employ, Mister Morozova! And now I fear you have spoiled everyone’s appetites for the evening,” the Duke hissed, signaling the waitstaff with a roll of his wrist to clear the half-eaten meal away.

Alina’s fork was halfway to her mouth when her plate vanished before her. Another servant delicately took the cutlery she was loathe to surrender from her grasp.

“Should anyone have need of me,” the Duke’s expression clearly implied a _not you_ in Aleksander’s direction, “I shall be in the smoking lounge enjoying a much-needed pipe.”

He stood, the chair scraped behind him, and he strode from the room with heavy levels of indignation.

Every morsel of food was cleared from the table. Even the fruit tartlettes.

Alina’s stomach rumbled.

Aleksander’s brows lifted.

If she did not care for the man before, she sorely detested him now.

\--

“Tell me, is there anything else I am not to speak of?” Aleksander asked, as the two of them sat on a blanket on the hill near her mother’s favorite duck pond.

Alina haughtily turned a page of her book in lieu of answering. The sun was warm on her face, a comforting feeling despite the company she was forced to endure.

“A family curse, perhaps? Maybe a disreputable scandal with the Duchess-“

Alina set her book down with a growl, turning to face the incorrigible man, “And who exactly are you, Shurik Morozova, that you insult the persons housing you?” Her eyes narrowed, “Criminal? Vagrant? What?”

“Aleksander.”

“I don’t care.”

His lips twist into a smile, “I am not a criminal. Vagrant, perhaps. But before either of those, I am a wanderer.”

“And whatare you wandering for?”

“An answer to my curiosity.”

He was sitting too close to her to be entirely appropriate. But further down the hill, Elizaveta paid neither of them any mind. Alina made a note to have a Discussion with the servant woman and maintaining boundaries of propriety. First the incident with the piano, now the disregard for her personal reading space.

“You are wasting your time,” Alina said curtly, “And we won’t house you forever.”

“I don’t need forever.”

Alina snorted, resuming her reading, “You’re rather self-assured for someone attempting to solve a problem dozens have already failed.”

His fingers wrapped around her wrist, one by one by one. And Alina’s brows furrowed when the skin-to-skin contact caused something to _jolt_ within her. Her mind went back to the day, years ago, at the _Soldat Sol,_ and the priest who had tried to call something out of her. Alina’s gaze travels slowly towards the charlatan’s. A small, satisfied grin formed on his lips.

“What if,” he dropped her wrist to push back a strand of her white hair behind her ear, “I don’t see it as a problem?”

Alina did her best to cover the unsettled feeling blooming in her stomach, “So you’re an amplifier. Amplifiers have tried before.”

“I’m not just an amplifier.”

“Other than a crook trying to rob a destitute estate of what little fortune we have left,” Alina grumbled, shifting in her seat on the grass to fully face him, “And a man with an unremarkable name, what are you?”

The traveler’s cold eyes lit up with amusement, “Guess.”

Alina shook her head, “I don’t see the value of engaging in a game with you, Sasha.”

“Aleksander,” he is still far too close to her, but he withdraws after a moment, “How about a wager, then, Alina?”

“ _Miss_ Alina. What sort of wager.”

“If you solve what I am first, I will leave without taking a payment. If I solve what you are first, I collect the offer.”

Alina’s fingers clenched tightly around the book in her hands, “And which offer is that.”

“The one promised to me upon my arrival.”

“My father makes many foolish promises. You will have to elaborate on the one he gave you.”

The wanderer leaned forward, his forehead nearly touching her own. Alina’s teeth grit against each other, “A title.”

“My father doesn’t have the ability to grant titles.”

“Marriage contracts do.”

Alina felt herself pale. She stood, “You’ll have to excuse me, charlatan.”

“For?”

“I have an urgent need to commit patricide.”

\--

“Where is he,” Alina didn’t waste much time with unnecessary things, like introductions, as she opened the double French doors to her mother’s sun room simultaneously. A dramatic gesture, somewhat ruined by her knocking over a potted plant with her matrimonial ire.

“ _Alina,_ ” the Duchess glowered as she fanned herself on the divan, one hand delicately wrapped around a tincture, “I know I have raised you better than to conduct rash entrances.”

Her fingers clenched into fists at her sides, “Have you seen father.”

The Duchess only rolled her eyes, tipping back her glass and taking a hearty drink, “What possible business could you have with the man.”

“My father?”

“Indeed.”

Alina shook her head, “Did you know he’s promised my hand in marriage to _conjurers_?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Alina. You can only be married to one conjurer at a time.”

“Not the point.”

The Duchess sighed, lifting her tincture up to the sunlight and twisting it with her fingertips, “It was my idea, actually.”

Alina’s heart flipped into her stomach, “Yours…?”

Her mother didn’t look away from the liquid in her hand, “Of course, dear. You are of marriageable age. Have been for some time. And your little indiscretion with the Baron’s son has caused considerable hardship for the estate.”

Alina felt whatever ire she had cool at the memory. Mollified, she looked at the toes of her buckled boots, “…I- I still do not remember the events of the incident.”

“Irrelevant, darling,” the Duchess sighed, “Truth be told, I am loathe to fully abandon your marriage prospects to men of higher social standing. But I am even more loathe to allow an opportunity for their dismemberment,” she flicked a manicured finger against the glass. It let out the resounding _ting_ of incomparably expensive crystal _,_ and the Duchess sighed in mourning, “The young Golovin cost us my favorite orange groves, you know.”

“The wanderer has nothing to his name,” Alina finally managed to choke out. Trying not to let the bitterness she was feeling manifest itself into tears, “And you have no other heirs.”

The Duchess turned and gave Alina her full attention for the first time since she entered the sitting room. Alina was not surprised to see the glazed-over quality to her mother’s stare, “Oh Alina,” she tsked in pity, “We have no true heirs _now._ ”

Alina stood there for a few more moments, before dismissing herself with an appropriate curtsey.

\--

Hours later, she found her way to the guest wing of the manor. In only her housecoat, and carrying a candle, her first knock on the charlatan’s quarters was hesitant. The second was louder, more confident.

The door opened. And the charlatan stared at her with an amused disbelief.

“Alina.”

“ _Miss_ Alina,” she corrected, trying to maintain whatever dignity she could, “I accept your wager. On one condition.”

“And that is?”

“I intend on disclosing my affliction,” Alina’s eyes narrowed in challenge, “but I will only marry you if you cure me.”

He leaned against the frame of the door, arms crossed over the plain, white dress shirt devoid of a waistcoat, “There’s no cure for the small science. Only control.”

Alina closed her eyes. Steadied her breath, and considered. “Very well,” she swallowed, “You teach me control. The remaining terms of the wager stand.”

The charlatan mulled this over, “So long as you swear to not hold back your progress, I accept.”

Alina clutched her housecoat tighter around her, “Aside from the unfortunate side-effect of marriage to a conman, the wager is in my best interest on either side.”

The charlatan inclined his head, “Very well-“

“I have another condition.”

He frowned, “You’ve already made one.”

“And now I have two.” Alina bit the inside of her cheek, “If you fail, or if I guess what you are first, you must help me leave the estate.”

“…You are not a prisoner here.”

“You’re wrong.”

The charlatan mulled this over, “Then I have a condition of my own.”

“What?” She snapped.

“You call me by my name. And I am allowed to call you by yours.”

Alina’s nose wrinkled in distaste, but it was a small concession to give, “Fine.”

Aleksander (the charlatan) gave an easy bow, and his hand reached for hers. She tried not to recoil in disgust as he kissed the back of it, “Then we have an arrangement.”

“We do.”

His lips continued to hover over her skin, as warm as the fingers wrapped around her hand. Alina quickly withdrew from his grasp.

“Goodnight.”

He smiled, “Goodnight, Alina.”

She walked back to her own rooms, discretely wiping the back of her hand against her housecoat and desperately trying to fight the voice of reason in her mind which proclaimed she had just made a deal with the devil.

Once in her bedroom, Alina blew out the candle.

She would simply have to beat him at his own game.


End file.
